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THE PAPYRUS. See page 126. 





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FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS 


BY 

SOPHIE E. EASTMAN. 



PUBLISHED BY THE 


AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 

219 Washington Street, Boston. 

HURD AND HOUGHTON, Astor Place, N. Y. 


The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass- 







Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by 
The American Tract Society, 

In the OflSce of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 


RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: 
STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY 
H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. 


CONTENTS. 

' PACK 

Introductory ....... 5 

CHAPTER I. 

“Growing a Soul”. 9 

CHAPTER 11. 

“ Made a-purpose ” . . . .• . .20 

CHAPTER III. 

Prophecy.39 

CHAPTER IV. 

Prophecy fulfilled.54 

CPIAPTER V. 

A Button and its Story.65 

^ CHAPTER VI. 

The Man with the Gold Watch . . .77 

CHAPTER VII. 


A Strange Correspondence 


87 




IV 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

“ They all jibe ” . 

CHAPTEI^ IX. 

The Soul growing 

CHAPTER X. 

The Soul-harvest 


. lOI 

. 119 

• 134 


) 



INTRODUCTORY. 


A NIGHT of darkness and tempest; far 
out on the ocean the light-house flashed its 
warning of the pitiless death that lurked 
about it, but the lower light, that guarded 
its own little harbor, had gone out. 

Morning stood, golden shod, upon the 
eastern hill-tops, and there were only the 
fragments of the wreck drifted on shore, 
and the cold dead faces looking up toward 
the sky — left on the beach when the tide 
went down, — to tell the fearful tragedy of 
the night. 

There are mothers who are always at the 
prayer-meeting and the Benevolent Society, 
and whose purses are ever open to the wants 
of the missionary, but who forget to keep 



6 


INTRODUCTORY, 


the lower lights burning; who leave their 
children to fall asleep, with no memories for 
their last waking thoughts, but the profane 
jesting, and low coarse slang that they per¬ 
chance have heard. 

O Mothers! if you would but take five 
minutes every evening, from the gas-light, 
the sewing, and if needs be the visitor, to 
tell your boys and girls some little thing 
that shows God’s love or power or good¬ 
ness ; to give them some pure, pleasant 
thought to fall asleep with, and dream of 
through the long night, you would find new 
strength and beauty in his words, “ These 
ought ye to have done, and not to have left 
the other undone,” 

This little book is sent forth, not so much 
for what it is, as for the hope that it may 
prove a suggestion to some abler pen of the 
need there is of simplifying the evidences 
of Christianity and bringing them to the 
level of a child’s thought, that, — 


INTRODUCTOR K 


7 


When mankind shall meet beyond the tomb, 
There may be found some spirits we have taught 
To fix their hopes upon the World to come : 

For e’en their final, their decisive doom, * 

Might be affected by the care they knew; 

Oh ! it were worth long years of toil and gloom 
To see that vision rise from life’s review. 

Trusting to sleep in Christ, and wake to find it true.” 




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FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 


CHAPTER I. 

“growing a soul” 

N one side of the road a meadow filled 



with cowslips ; on the other a narrow 
field purple with violets, white with anem¬ 
ones ; and on the topmost rail of the Vir¬ 
ginia fence was idly sitting a boy in faded, 
threadbare clothes ; a boy, dull and heavy to 
outward seeming, save for the Wonderful 
eyes that looked out from under his straw 
hat’s ragged brim. 

“Good-morning, Burt,” I said, and his 
face blossomed into sudden beauty as he re¬ 
turned the greeting, swinging himself down 
into the little forest of buttercups that bor¬ 
dered the narrow path. 



10 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

Teacher,” he said, slowly and doubtfully, 
I don’t want to say anything disrespectful 
to God, but how can you know anything 
about what you can’t see ? ” 

I hesitated in my reply. It seemed to 
me as if the listening violets bent their 
heads still nearer, and just then a robin 
ceased his song. I prayed that in the si¬ 
lence a divine answer might come, even as 
to him who of old stood upon the banks of 
Ulai about the time of the evening oblation. 
But that age is past. God’s messengers 
now are not winged ones, though perhaps 
they are none the less of his sending. 

It was only the cheery voice of Farmer 
Blake calling in his bluff way, “ Will you 
ride } ” I mounted the high seat of his old 
express wagon, and Burt climbed in behind. 

There were some remarks exchanged on 
the weather, some questions in regard to 
my school and boarding-place. Then in 
his loud tone, as if he were trying to fill our 
vast audience room, he asked, “ Do you 
teach your scholars the catechism. Miss 
Deane, ‘ Man’s chief end is to glorify God, 
and enjoy Him forever ’ ” 





















































FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. ' 11 

No. I had prided myself on having told 
them so many quaint and curious facts in 
natural history, botany, and chemistry, 
and perhaps through these they might 
learn to glorify God. But to enjoy Him 
forever — I had counted happiness as the 
least of my duties, and what we would teach 
another must in our own hearts “ first keep 
school.” 

Then, too, Burt’s question perplexed me. 
How should I answer it; how bring those 
infinite truths into his poor, dwarfed, igno¬ 
rant soul. 

He was one of my favorite pupils, though 
the neighbors would have smiled to hear 
me say it. A bound boy, taken from the 
almshouse by that low shiftless Caleb Fris- 
bie, with his ragged clothes, unkempt hair, 
and a face sullen or sleepy, as the case 
might be, he was accounted a sort of pariah, 
even in the village of Coleraine. Yet un¬ 
derneath it all lay something that reminded 
me of those beautiful Bolena. In quiet 
and silence they lie, a blackened sheet of 
water, till perchance some sudden touch or 


12 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

motion rouses them, and in an instant the 
whole night is luminous. 

Of his home training I knew but little. 
Once, however, as I passed the house, I 
heard the sharp voice of Mrs. Frisbie in 
peremptory command, — 

Don’t arger, don’t arger ; you ’ll do ex¬ 
actly as I tell you without lettin’ me hear 
you arger.” 

A naturalist can from a single bone con¬ 
struct an entire skeleton, and describe the 
character and habits of the animal. From 
that one sentence, and the sound of de¬ 
scending blows, I could easily guess the in¬ 
fluences that had made him what he was. 

“ It is useless to go in,” said my com¬ 
panion, when I involuntarily stopped. “ I 
know Mrs. Frisbie. It will only be the 
harder for Burt after you have gone.” 

I pitied the boy, and after considerable 
strategy established the habit of walking to 
and from school with him. The first day 
that I succeeded in doing this, I told him 
on the way home the story of Adam and 
Eve in the Garden. He walked on appar- 



FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS, 13 

ently listless and indifferent. I doubted if 
he even heard a word I said. But at the 
close of the story, as he stood at the bars 
where his path branched off “ cross-lots,’’ 
he announced in a tone of calm conviction, 
“ I think Eve was the blamest of the two.” 

Encouraged by this proof of attention, I 
had told him other Bible stories : of Joseph, 
and Samuel, and David ; and how Jesus 
loved the poor, and raised the widow’s son. 
Meantime he seemed to waken to a new 
life; others beside myself had noted the 
change. 

“ What’s got into Burt ? ” shouted one of 
his boon companions to Caleb Frisbie, only 
the day before. 

Don’t know. Guess he’s growing a 
soul,” was the brief rejoinder as he sham¬ 
bled past. It was intended as a sarcasm, 
but it spoke a simple truth. 

And still came to me that ever-recurring 
question, with Burt’s slight emphasis, how 
can we know anything about what we can’t 
see.? ” 

As Farmer Blake left us at the school- 


14 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

house gate, I said, It is so early, I think 
we must be the first ones here.” 

“ Oh, no, teacher ! ” was the earnest reply ; 
don’t you see how plain the boys’ tracks 
are after the rain ? And Horace has come, 
I know, for I can see where he stepped his 
club foot.” 

“ Burt,” — we stood on the doorstep then, 
— “ God has left his foot-prints every¬ 
where about us, and instead of answering 
your question now, I shall wait and let you 
find some of them first.” 

Just before school was excused that noon, 
I said, “ Here are bits of wood and paint, 
and I would like to have the boys make me 
some morning-glory seeds like these, dur¬ 
ing the intermission.” 

Scarcely had the contents of dinner pails 
and baskets been disposed of, than I heard 
sounds of merry rivalry : “ Mine are shaped 
the best of any.” ‘‘Yes, but Eben’s are 
nearest in color.” “ Let Jennie Brewster 
be umpire. Now, Jennie, could you tell 
those from real seeds ? ” 

When the warning bell tinkled at five 



FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 


IS 

minutes of one, “ question time,” the schol¬ 
ars called it, an eager group surrounded the 
desk. 

“ I can hardly tell which are the true 
and which are the false, you have imitated 
so closely,” I said. “To-night after school 
we will plant them. Now which would you 
rather have, God’s seeds or yours, under 
the windows.? ” 

“ We don’t want ours planted,” they ex¬ 
claimed, “ wooden seeds would n’t grow.” 

“ Not if you watered them sufficiently .?” 

“ Why no,” asserted Bob Sawyer, “ there’s 
no life in them.” 

“ You are right. Bob,” I said. “ Man 
cannot create life. This little seed has 
within it the germ of the future plant, and 
He who first made morning-glory seeds 
that would blossom, made through them 
these and all others that have shaded sunny 
windows ever since. Remember that only 
God can create.” As I struck the school- 
bell for the dispersing group, Burt whis¬ 
pered, “ I can see a foot-print, teacher.” 

It was our custom at the close of school 


16 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS, 

for each to repeat some interesting fact 
that he or she had learned during the day. 
Then came a five minutes’ talk, or story. 
Lastly, a Bible verse was written on the 
board, and after a moment’s silent study, 
was erased, and then repeated in concert 
by all except the primer class. 

This afternoon they begged for a little 
story. So I told them how one day when 
I was West at Sargent’s Springs, some one 
proposed a horseback ride across the prai¬ 
rie, promising to take us where the foot of 
man had never trod, and of our funny ad¬ 
ventures at starting, till at last I was safely 
mounted on the friendly gray, with Dash 
bounding at my side ; our rough ride through 
the tall prairie grass, starred with the white 
eryngium ; the sudden encounter with a 
rattlesnake ; and at last a distant view of 
what seemed an immense boulder, but 
which upon nearing we found to be an 
empty house, with curtained windows, and 
a padlock on the outside door. “ And so,” 
I concluded, “we dismounted, and stood 
upon the stone steps where — do you think 
the foot of man had never been^ before ? ” 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 


17 

An incredulous smile passed round the 
room and Mamie Rogers’ hand was raised. 

“Well, Mamie.” 

“ There must have been some man there 
before you to build the house.” 

“ But could not the house have happened 
there by chance } ” 

“ Wood don’t grow up in flat boards, but 
in round logs,” said Eben Scott. 

“ I guess I know,” added Burt; “ the cur¬ 
tain and the padlock looks as if they did n’t 
mean to let any one get in nor see in, and 
that shows that somebody with a Think 
had been there.” 

“ How many,” I asked, “ agree that there 
must have been some one there before us } ” 
Every hand was raised. 

My dear scholars,” I continued, “ do 
you ever stop to think who made this great 
Home for us all, this earth } Could any 
man have rolled up those mighty mount¬ 
ains of the East ? Why, the air upon their 
summits is so thin and transparent that he 
could not have breathed it, and but to stand 
there would have marked his grave. Could 
2 


1 8 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

any man have hollowed out the ocean’s bed, 
or the endless caves of Kentucky, when but 
to tunnel the Berkshire mountain is ac¬ 
counted the great work of the age ? Then 
look at the stars, uncounted millions of 
other worlds, some of them thousands of 
times larger than our own. Even our 
wisest astronomers cannot calculate their 
distance from us save that of the least re¬ 
mote. And to reach the nearest fixed star, 
travelling one hundred miles an hour, would 
require twenty millions of years. Does not 
that prove that God has been here 1 ” 

Without another word 1 wrote upon the 
board the Bible verse ; and a moment later 
twenty voices were reverently repeating, 
“ For every house is builded by some man: 
but He that built all things is God.” 

And underneath I had printed for the 
little primer children those sweet, simple 
words of Holy writ, the key-note of the 
universe, “ There is a God.” 

Mamie Rogers’ hand went up. “ It is 
Wednesday afternoon to-morrow; please 
may we have our general exercise about 
God, and things ? ” 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 19 

Yes,” I answered, ‘‘you may bring me 
all the instances you can think of to prove 
that the world was planned by an Intelli¬ 
gent Creator ; anything which shows con¬ 
trivance or design.” 

“ Anything that looks as if things were 
meant for something,” explained Burt to 
himself. 

So the school was dismissed ; and under 
the windows the “ God’s glory-seeds,” as lit¬ 
tle Bessie Sawyer called them, were plant¬ 
ed ; and I think there came into our school¬ 
room from those little brown embryos, some 
things not mentioned even in Syme and 
Sowerby’s all comprehending Botany. 


CHAPTER II. 


MADE A-PURPOSE.” 


W EDNESDAY was full of sunshine. 

“ I am as happy as if it were never 
going to rain again,” said Jennie Brewster 
in the nooning. 

A perpetual drought would be a singu¬ 
lar cause of rejoicing,” remarked Ida Will¬ 
iams in her prim way. 

“ There ! ” exclaimed Clara Esty, “ that’s 
another instance for our general exercise. 
It really does seem as if everything I see 
or think of is a contrivance. I ’ll write 
down rain in my note-book.” 

“ I can tell you one thing,” said Dan 
Van (Daniel Van Cleve was never heard 
of outside the school and family register), 
Willis Hall has found something better 
than your note-book. His uncle, the min¬ 
ister, came yesterday, and you’d better be¬ 
lieve Willis is primed for the occasion.” 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 21 

‘‘I think we girls studied a trifle last 
evening,” observed Clara mysteriously. 

Ohl Is your note-book copyrighted } 
If not I would like to make a few ex¬ 
tracts.” 

‘^I looked into Nell’s blank-book, as she 
calls it, this morning,” said Eben Scott, 
“ and I tell you it was done up regular girl 
style. On one side ‘ What Man cannot do,’ 
and under it blue roses and a lot of names ; 
and on the other side, * What Man can do,’ 
and then cuckoo clocks and a quantity of 
such rubbish. It made me think of her old 
drawing-book that I found the other day. 
She had written under every picture, ‘ this 
is a house,’ ‘ this is a tree,’ and so on, be¬ 
cause she had drawn a flower vase, and 
grandma mistook it for a candlestick.” 

“ Under ‘What Man^can do,’ you should 
have added, he can be rude to his sister,” 
remarked Ida Williams severely. 

“ But what is it about blue roses } ” que¬ 
ried Mamie Rogers. 

“ Why, I was just balancing things a 
little,” returned Nellie Scott. “ You know 


22 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

that chemists have been experimenting for 
years to make a rose-bush produce blue in¬ 
stead of red and white blossoms. But they 
don’t succeed very well; and I was think¬ 
ing how easy jt was for God to make flowers 
of all sorts of colors. He does it every 
year.” 

“ And the cuckoo birds } ” 

“You know men have succeeded in mak¬ 
ing wooden ones that will sing.” 

“ I like live birds best,” said little Julie 
Meigs, of primer class notoriety. 

This was a fine opening for Eben. “ You 
are entirely mistaken, Miss Meigs ; it is 
because you have never seen this other 
kind. Just wind up a cuckoo clock, and 
every hour a little bird will dart out, sing, 
and then hop back.” 

“ God’s birds don’t have to be wounded 
up to make them sing,” she persisted. 
Small as she was, Julie had never yet been 
conquered in an argument. 

“ Oh dear, it seems as if three o’clock 
never would come ! ” sighed Bell Stanton. 

Bell was one of those impatient spirits 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 23 

whose clocks are always losing time, or just 
a little bit too slow. It did come, however, 
and the last stroke found us ready to com¬ 
mence. It was the rule in our Wednesday 
general exercise, that any one might speak 
who chose, provided he did not interrupt 
another. But by a sort of tacit agreement, 
the scholars generally waited for the young¬ 
est, Bessie Sawyer, to have the precedence. 

“ What is my little Bessie going to tell us 
about ? ” I asked. 

“ I saw some cows fooding along and 
flagging their tails, and mamma said God 
made them to give us milk,” was the almost 
whispered response, smoothing down her 
apron with her wee hands meanwhile. 

What else are they useful for } ” 

“ To make beef,” said Clarence Wescott. 
Leather is prepared from the hide, and 
glue and neat’s-foot oil from the feet,” added 
Ida Williams. 

“ And combs and knife-handles from the 
horns,” continued Willis Hall. 

“ Did you see the cows too, Julie } ” 

No, ma’am. My thing is cocoa-nut trees. 


24 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 


The girls read it out of a big booktionary, 
but I was n’t ’tentive, and I don’t know the 
rest of it.” 

Clara promptly supplemented her. “ They 
yield bread, milk, oil, wine, vinegar and su¬ 
gar; black paint, cloth, ropes, mats, and 
sacking, are made from them. An entire 
ship can be built from these trees alone. 
The ashes contain a great deal of potash-, 
and the natives chew the root as a substi¬ 
tute for areca.’’ 

Evidently Clara’s note-book was not a 
thing to be despised. 

“It looks as if cows and cocoa-nut trees 
were made a purpose,” said Burt. 

“ My father thinks,” began Horace Wait, 
“ that if a man had created the world, he 
would have had water-melons grow on 
large trees, and chestnuts on little bits of 
plants, so as to have things correspond. 
But the melons would break falling so far, 
and they would hurt our heads if we were 
under the tree. So God put them on vines, 
because He could look put befprebund and 
prepare for these things.” 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 


25 

“ Oh, I have thought of something better 
than that,” exclaimed Willis eagerly. “ My 
uncle says ” — 

At this moment we were interrupted by 
a knock at the door, and a wide-awake look¬ 
ing young man, with very black eyes, intro¬ 
duced himself to me as Mr. Cameron, taking 
the offered seat on the platform. 

Probably he is an agent to introduce the 
new geography, I reflected, and as he does 
not state his errand I will go on with the 
exercise. 

*‘Now, Willis,” I said. **What does your 
uncle say ? ” 

To my surprise, instead of answering he 
blushed deeply, and a low amused laugh 
rippled out round the room. 

The visitor evidently saw my embarrass¬ 
ment, and came to the rescue by saying 
pleasantly, You see now. Miss Deane, why . 
I ventured in this afternoon, though I 
doubted whether I should find the latch¬ 
string outside the door during general ex¬ 
ercise. I knew Willis would be quoting 
his uncle, and I wanted to see what state- 


26 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

ments he was making me responsible for. 
Well, my boy, what did uncle Fred Cam¬ 
eron say ? ” 

I would rather you’d tell,” he answered, 
still a little confused, — “ It is about the 
cocoa-nut tree and the children.” 

“ Oh yes! I remember,” he said with a 
winning smile, “ it is something this littlq 
primer class can understand. You little 
children never saw any cocoa-nuts just as 
they fall from the trees, did you } They 
are as large as a melon, sometimes over 
two feet in circumference, and they have a 
hard shell that would hurt you very badly 
if it should fall on your heads. Now how 
do you suppose those Eastern people dare 
to let their little ones play under the 
branches of the cocoa-nut tree ? ” 

Bessie Sawyer, Daisy and Delly Smith, 
and Julie Meigs shook their little beads ; 
they could not tell. 

Well, I think God remembered the 
children when He made those trees ; and 
so instead of dropping at all times of the 
day, like nuts and apples, the fruit only 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 2 / 

falls at sunrise and sunset, about an hour 
each time. So you see how He cares for 
the little ones.” 

“ He's good to squirrels too,” chimed in 
Delly Smith, “ they have claws to help them 
climb trees to get nuts.” 

“ And lest their teeth should be worn 
out gnawing open walnuts and butternuts, 
He lets four of the front teeth keep on 
growing as long as they live,” was the cli¬ 
max of Nellie Scott. 

By this time Bell Stanton’s patience had 
nearly reached its utmost limit. Please 
can’t I tell' about the cuttle-fish now. It 
has a funny little bag under its throat, full 
of something that looks like ink, and when 
it is pursued it darkens the water around it 
so that it is completely hidden. And I 
don’t believe,” she added, “ that any one 
but God would ever have thought of such a 
curious way to escape.” 

No sooner had Bell finished than half a 
dozen were ready to speak. The different 
means of defense with which animals are 
provided were discussed ; the goodness of 


28 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS, 

God as seen in so large a majority of them 
being inoffensive to man ; the statement of 
a learned naturalist, that the voices of most 
of the birds and beasts that preyed upon 
flesh were loud and harsh, seemingly to 
give their victims warning of their vi¬ 
cinity, etc. It was asserted that even 
snakes, outside the tropics, seldom act on 
the offensive. Unless startled or annoyed, 
they rarely attack a person. 

There is one thing I would like to 
speak of just here, if I may,” said ]\Tr. Cam¬ 
eron ; “ you know that in Nature every 
poison has its antidote. Now on the West¬ 
ern prairies, the farmers say that wher¬ 
ever rattlesnakes are found, there also will 
be the rattlesnake weed, a white flower 
whose root they claim will cure the bite of 
that dreaded reptile. Do you think if the 
world had been made by chance, those two 
things would always have happened to be 
located together } ” 

“What did you find to tell us about, 
Burt } ” I inquired, for I noticed the inter¬ 
est with which he was listening. 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 


29 

“ Last evening I asked Mr. Frisbie what 
he thought was the most wonderful thing 
God had made ; and he laughed and said 
he guessed it was the windmill that was 
sawing his wood for him. I suppose he 
meant it for fun, but I think wind is just 
like God, we can’t see it, but we can feel 
it.” 

Ida Williams whom in retaliation for her 
numerous rebukes Eben Scott had nick¬ 
named the Unlicensed Preacher, — now 
spoke of the power of God as illustrated by 
earthquakes and volcanoes, taking her text 
from the 104th Psalm : “ He looketh on the 
earth and it trembJeth ; He toucheth the 
hills and they smoke.” Clara Esty followed 
with a verse from Job, “ The thunder of 
His power who can understand } ” and de¬ 
scribed the curious effects of electricity. 

Nellie Scott came next with her favorite 
verse, “ The flowers appear on the earth ; 
the time of the singing of birds has come.” 
Divine knowledge was displayed in creat¬ 
ing 100,000 different kinds of plants, so 
varied in size, yet so perfect in every part; 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 


30 

and Divine goodness in not only the plants 
used for food, but such as the umbrella tree, 
flax, and the cotton shrub, one pound of 
cotton having been spun into a thread 4,770 
miles long. 

Jennie Brewster had chosen for her sub¬ 
ject, the migration of birds, especially those 
mentioned in Jeremiah viii. 7 : “ ‘The stork 
in the heaven knoweth her appointed times ; 
and the turtle and the crane and the swal¬ 
low observe the time of their coming.’ The 
word stork,” she said, “in Greek and in 
Hebrew denoted kindness; its nests were 
considered sacred among the Mohammed¬ 
ans, and in Holland it was protected by 
law. The flight of birds was so regular in 
some Eastern countries that almanacs were 
timed" thereby.” 

Willis and Ira were the only remaining 
members of the class ; and I judged from 
their faces that this little collection of facts 
had taken them completely by surprise. 
But they were equal to the emergency. I 
had seen them looking for verses, and had 
quietly handed them a pocket concordance 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS, 31 

that I kept in my desk. As soon as Jen¬ 
nie finished, Willis repeated the verse, 

They that go down to the sea in ships, 
that do business in great waters ; these see 
the works of the Lord, and his wonders in 
the deep.” He spoke of animal life being 
far more abundant in the sea than on land ; 
describing the sword-fish, nautilus, coral, 
polyps, etc., till I was obliged to limit his 
time. 

Ira, acting on Burt’s hint, was ready with 
a verse from Ecclesiastes: “ * The wind 
goeth toward the south and turneth about 
unto the north ; it whirleth about continu¬ 
ally, and the wind returneth again accord¬ 
ing to his circuits.’ It impels ships across 
the ocean,” he said, “ checks the pestilence 
when human skill is powerless ; aids in the 
dispersion of seeds, and drives the sea- 
clouds landward that the earth might be 
watered.” At last amid trade-winds and 
siroccos he sat down, having, as Nellie 
Scott said, proved himself worthy of the 
occasion. 

The interchange of comments as re- 


32 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

ported to me next day ran thus : Willis on 
his way home remarked to Ira, I will 
never say again that a woman cannot keep 
a secret.” And a moment after Clara said 
to Jennie in a tone of calm conviction, I 
will never again laugh at the boys for hav¬ 
ing taken notes when Professor Knowles 
lectured here on Winds and Waves.” 

At this point in our general exercise, 
Mamie Rogers, whom Dan Van defined as 
a girl who was n’t afraid of a face of clay, 
preferred a request: “ Please, Miss Deane, 
I have begun a Round Robin to ask if 
Willis’ uncle will tell us some more things 
that didn’t happen by chance, and may I 
pass it to the other scholars to sign } ” 

“We should all like to hear Mr. Cam¬ 
eron speak to us,” I said ; “ and perhaps he 
will kindly do so without waiting for that.” 

He immediately rose, and taking a knife 
from his pocket opened first a blade, then 
a little saw, a file, and a corkscrew. “ What 
is this knife intended for, children 

Various were" the answers : “ To sharpen 
pencils ; ” “ to take corks out of bottles ; ” 
“ to saw with,” etc. 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 


33 

How many of you,” he continued, 
“think it was dug out of the ground just as 
it is ? That some ivory and steel happened 
by chance to fall into this shape ? ” 

Not a hand was raised. 

“ And why is n’t it probable } ” 

“Because it is adapted to special uses, 
and such things don’t come by chance very 
often.” 

Of course it was Ira who answered. Bob 
Sawyer was wont to say that those twin 
Williamses were born just fifty-three years 
too late ; they ought to be at least seventy 
years old to have their words and looks 
correspond. 

“ Very well,” said Mr. Cameron. “ Now 
let us apply this principle to Nature. What 
animal can live for days without water ? ” 

“ The camel.” 

“ And in what sort of countries do you 
find it } ” 

“ In deserts.” 

“In hot sandy countries, where the wells 
are miles apart.” 

“Yes, that is just where it lives, and 
3 


34 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

without it some people think that much of 
Africa, and a part of Asia, would have been 
uninhabited. It is a tall animal, six feet or 
more in height. Now how do the Arabs 
mount and pack their goods upon it ? ”. 

** It kneels down/’ 

** And is there any special provision for 
this habit in the structure of the camel ? ” 

No one knew. 

“ The knees are callous, a hard tissue 
covers them and prevents their becoming 
sore by pressure. Their owners commence 
when they are very young to train them to 
labor. Their limbs are folded under them, 
and they are obliged to remain on the 
ground until loaded with a light burden, the 
weight of which is increased in proportion 
to their strength. Now if God had not 
foreseen how much suffering it would save, 
would He have so carefully cushioned its 
feet, and calloused its knees 1 He knew 
too that the elk would live in a very cold 
climate, and flattened its antlers so that it 
could use them as shovels in clearing the 
snow from its food. Have you noticed that 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 35 

in very warm countries He has planted the 
cool juicy fruits just where parched and 
fevered lips would long for them ? Did 
you ever think that if all animals ate the 
same kind of food, the supply would soon 
be exhausted ? But He has so planned that 
what is sustenance for one species is some¬ 
times poison to another. The camel that 
we were just speaking of searches out all 
the nettles and thistles it can find, prefer¬ 
ring them to any other kind of food. 

Then, too, notice how the dispersion of 
seeds is provided for that plants may not 
run out. They are carried by birds and 
winds, or they float down on the water ; a 
single cocoa-nut washed into a coral reef 
has in time covered an island. Some seeds 
are furnished with hooks and spines, which 
attach themselves to the passer-by. Others 
are winged, like those of the maple, and fly 
abroad with the same sweet message, ‘ And 
out of the ground made the Lord God to 
grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, 
and good for food.’ Some seed-vessels open 
violently with a report like a pistol, and 


36 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

scatter their contents at a distance. Even 
this little primer class, when they blow off 
the downy tops of dandelions to see whether 
mother wants them, are God's little helpers 
in this great work.” 

“We make burdock baskets too,” volun¬ 
teered Julie Meigs, “ and carry them home.” 

“ And that is another way,” he said 
kindly. 

It was now time to close school, so we 
read in concert the Psalm beginning, “ The 
heavens declare the glory of God, and the 
firmament showeth his handiwork.” And 
the little ones repeated for their verse, 
“ All Thy works shall praise Thee.” 

Mr. Cameron lingered a moment after the 
school was excused. “ You must find it only 
a pleasure. Miss Deane, to teach such in¬ 
telligent scholars.” 

“Yes, indeed,” I answered, “I feel that 
my life has touched its zenith in spite of 
the sympathy of friends for my hard voca¬ 
tion.” 

“ To me,” he said, “ teaching children, 
whether in school-room or pulpit, seems the 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 


37 

grandest, noblest life to which we can give 
ourselves. I think so often as I see their 
little faces before me, of Raphael’s inscrip¬ 
tion, ^ Never to die.’ I am glad that yOu 
have commenced giving them some of the 
doctrinal as well as practical truths of re¬ 
ligion.” 

“ But the subject is so vast, and the little 
that I can do seems so meagre and incom¬ 
plete, that sometimes I feel discouraged and 
almost tempted to lay aside my little plan 
of giving them a sort of general outline of 
the evidences of Christianity.” 

“ I don’t know. Miss Deane ; it always ap¬ 
peared to me sound philosophy to enter the 
small end of a wedge first. Prove to them 
God’s existence ; show them his power and 
wisdom and goodness ; incite them to look 
out and compare the prophecies of the 
Bible and their fulfillment ; simplify to 
them the wonderful testimony to Christ’s 
life and miracles, and the Old Testament 
history, that ancient manuscripts and mod¬ 
ern discoveries in the East have given. 
And above all the rest make them feel that 


38 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS, 

they have a present personal God to whom 
they can come and tell all their little joys 
and sorrows. Let them see his dear hand 
in the singing birds and the pleasant sun ; 
in everything, whether it bring pain or 
pleasure, teach them to think of Him and 
to pray to Him,” 


CHAPTER III. 


PROPHECY. 



HURSDAY noon, and the usual array 


-1- of doughnuts, pickles, gingerbread, 
cheese, and apple turn-overs. 

Clara Esty and Eben Scott were discuss¬ 
ing a word in his parsing lesson, and as 
usual disagreed. 

“ Any one can see that it is in the inde¬ 
pendent case,” he insisted. The trouble 
with you, Clara, is n’t that you don’t study 
enough, but that your brain is too small to 
hold all you know.” 

And your difficulty,” she retorted, “ is 
just the opposite. It is n’t that your brain 
is not large enough, but only that you 
have n’t knowledge to fill it. Your condi¬ 
tion is that of Mrs. Stanton’s house — 
‘ Room to Let in the Upper Story.’ ” 

“ I can prove my assertion,” he said, with 


f 


40 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

provoking calmness. “ I suppose in the days 
of your youth you learned the catechism in 
the ‘New England Primer,’ ‘Who was the 
first man } ’ etc. But that has been so 
crowded out by later studies, that I doubt 
if you could answer it correctly now.” 

“ Indeed I can! ” she returned indig¬ 
nantly. 

“ Suppose we try,” and then commenced 
a rapid dialogue. 

“ ‘ Who was the first man } ’ ” 

“ ‘ Adam.’ ” 

Who was the first woman ? ’ ” 

“ ‘ Eve.’ ” 

‘“Who killed Cain.?”’ 

“ ‘ Abel.’ ” 

“ Did he .? ” 

A general laugh, and Clara was some¬ 
what disconcerted. 

Jennie Brewster came to the rescue. 
“ Of course she knew if she had stopped to 
think. That is n’t as bad as Mr. Randall. 
At our last neighborhood meeting he prayed 
that we might all say like Felix, ‘ Lord I am 
thine, entirely thine.’ ” 

Something was coming. I saw it in 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 


41 

Eben’s eyes, and I made haste to effect a 
diversion. Boys,” I said, “ you know 
that our next general exercise is to be on 
prophecy. Now I will foretell something 
in regard to the apple which Ira is just 
going to pare. I have, written the predic¬ 
tion on a slip of paper, and Mamie Rogers 
may show it to all except him. He is not 
to know what it is till he has proved it 
true.” On the paper I had written, “ I 
prophesy that as soon as Ira Williams has 
finished paring his apple it will fall into 
four pieces.” 

All gathered about his desk, watching 
him closely as he pared it round and round, 
and no sooner had he finished than it lay in 
quarters. 

“ Ira’s face is as good as a penny show,” 
said Mamie. 

“ Your own appearance is that of an in¬ 
verted exclamation point,” observed Eben. 

It is the first time in my life I ever saw 
Ira play a practical joke,” said Bob Sawyer, 
“ but I know he must have given two or 
three sly cuts with his knife when we 
did n’t see him.” 


42 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

You will find your own apple quartered 
in the same way, Bob, if you will pare it,” 
I remarked quietly. 

A moment later he was carefully taking 
off the outside skin, and to his evident 
chagrin the apple opened as he pared, re¬ 
vealing four pieces within, 

“ Won’t somebody give a prophecy for 
my apple } ” asked Eben. - 

Yes,” I replied, “you will find it halved 
for you, and Horace Waite’s apple will be 
whole.” 

The two boys immediately began to test 
the truth of my words. Mamie vibrated 
between their desks in her eagerness to 
watch, beating time with her head like a 
pendulum. 

“ I would n’t nod my head that way. Miss 
Rogers,” advised Eben, “ you ’ll lose it off 
if you are not careful.” 

“No great loss if I did,” she returned, 
pettishly. 

“ No, not a great loss to the world, I ad¬ 
mit, but rather a serious one to yourself.” 

“ I wish you would n’t say such things, 
Eben,” was Nellie’s remonstrance. 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 43 

“ Ho! who cares for his scurrilous re¬ 
marks,” said Mamie ; not I for one.” 

What you said has come true again, 
Miss Deane,” exclaimed Bell Stanton. 

Please do tell us what makes it so.” 

“ Not until recess. You may have till 
then to find out for yourselves,” was the 
decision, and eager curiosity waited. 

What conclusion have you arrived at ? ” 
I asked, as at that time they clustered 
round my desk. 

That if you could tell beforehand, you 
must have had something to do with bring¬ 
ing it about,” said Bob Sawyer, but I can’t 
see how you did it.” 

“You are right,” I said; “it was my 
work, and I want you to remember next 
wee'k when we study the prophecies of the 
Bible, that what God foretold He only 
could have brought to pass. As to the ap¬ 
ples, the explanation is very simple. Last 
evening I heard Clarence ” (I boarded with 
Mrs. Wescott) “ tell his mother that he 
was going to carry an apple to Bob Saw¬ 
yer, and one to Ira Williams, to-day, be- 


44 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

cause Bob had given him a slate-pencil, and 
Ira had helped him on a difficult example. 
After he had gone to bed, I threaded a 
needle with black silk, and beginning at 
the stem took a stitch under the skin of 
one of them. Putting the needle carefully 
back through the place where I drew it out, 
I took another stitch, and so on round the 
apple. At the stem, I held the needle and 
the knotted end of the silk which I had 
purposely left out when I began, and by a 
firm, gentle pull on the two brought the silk 
out at the stem, leaving the apple of course 
cut through under the skin. Beginning 
at right angles, I repeated the process, 
which you see would quarter the apple. 
The other one I treated in the same way. 
This morning during recess, knowing that 
Eben would be likely to be chief spokesman 
this noon, and feeling sure that he would 
excuse the liberty I had taken, I halved the 
one I found in his desk while you were all 
out watching the boys play ball.” 

“ I wonder Willis Hall or his uncle did 
not guess it,” said Mamie. 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 45 

Perhaps we should if I stayed at noon/^ 
replied Willis, and suddenly added, “There! 
I forgot to give you your message this 
morning. Miss Deane.” 

Just before school was excused, Mr. 
Cameron came in. He laid a package of 
books in bright bindings on the desk. 
“ Here are several copies of the ‘ Little 
Captain,’ the best temperance story that 
ever was written; and the rest are also 
Tract Society books,” he said. “ I am go¬ 
ing to pffer them as prizes. There is some¬ 
thing I want you each to do, and all who 
comply with my request will be entitled to 
one of these volumes. I will come in next 
week and see how many have done what I 
wished. Good afternoon. Miss Deane ; 
good afternoon, my little friends,” and in 
an instant he was gone. 

Immediately upon school’s being closed 
there arose such a chattering that a passer¬ 
by might have imagined a convention of 
blue jays to be in session. “ Why did n’t 
he tell us what he wanted us to do 1 ” 

“ What did he mean ? ” etc., etc. 


46 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

The next afternoon at five minutes of 
four I told the scholars I had a letter to 
read to them. 

I guess it’s from Willis’s uncle,” said 
Burt. 

^‘Why so.?” 

“ Because he would be likely to write to 
us and tell us what to do.” 

“You may all listen and see whether it 
is or not.” I read : — 

“ Friends and Fellow Citizens : 
We ’ve got a lot of wood split, and father 
says I can’t go fishing to-morrow till it’s 
all piled up. So if any patriotic soul (with 
a stout arm) wants to help me in the fore¬ 
noon, I will pay him for his time at the rate 
of two dollars a day, reckoning according to 
the old fashioned basis, that thank you is 
worth twenty-five cents, and thank you 
kindly, thirty-seven and a half.” 

' “ I don’t think Mr. Cameron wrote that,” 
said*Clara, decidedly, “ it does n’t sound like 
him.” 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 47 

“ The name signed to it is Bob Sawyer ; 
and I hope if any of you boys have an idle 
forenoon before you to-morrow, you will 
remember the Golden Rule. But here is 
another letter,” and again I read : — 

‘‘My dear Young Friends: I under¬ 
stand from Willis that you expect to hear 
from me, and very gladly will I state the 
conditions on which the books will be 
given. It is only that you each learn one 
prophecy or verse of a prophecy, and tell 
us next Wednesday how it was fulfilled. 

“ And mean time will you not each one 
think over this question ; if you were so 
sure that I was going to send you some 
message to indicate my wishes, do you 
think our dear Lord, after creating us, 
would have left us without telling us what 
He would have us to do He has written 
us a long letter, a Revelation of his Will, 
and it is called the Bible. And every 
night and every morning I pray that these 
little talks about God and his precious 
words, may be a golden stairway by which 
you shall climb to Him.” 


48 • FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

The bell struck softly, and one by one 
they turned homeward, all but Burt who 
waited while I dusted the school-room and 
left everything in order for Monday. 

Teacher,” he said gently, “I can’t find 
any place where God has n’t been. There’s 
foot-prints everywhere. I can’t put it in 
good words, but I find ’em.” 

As I said, Burt waited for me. What 
sudden impulse prompted the act I could 
not conjecture, but Mrs. Frisbie had that 
morning sent me an invitation to “ take 
supper and spend the evening.” I dreaded 
going, though I knew I must not refuse. It 
was not that the house had neither carpet 
nor picture under its roof. The most beau¬ 
tifully furnished room could never equal in 
inviting neatness the kitchens, sanded and 
scoured to a shining whiteness, where I 
often called. It was not the dust and un¬ 
tidiness that I expected to find from having 
heard that Mrs. Frisbie said she was thank¬ 
ful she was n’t so dreadful afraid of a little 
dirt as some folks. It was the ignorance 
and coarseness that formed the general 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 49 

atmosphere of the house, which repelled 
me. 

The table was ready as we entered the 
low dark room, and after Mr. Frisbie had 
asked me how I liked teaching, and how 
old I was, and if my father had means ; and , 
Mrs. Frisbie had expressed her satisfaction 
that Miss Meachem was n’t such a fool as 
to let her Sally go to school when she was 
big enough to earn ten shillin’ a week,” — 
we were seated around the festive board. 

Upon it was a dish of fried pork, and 
another of potatoes ; a bowl of cider apple 
.sauce, a plate of rye bread, and another of 
gingerbread ; a pumpkin pie, and a butter- 
plate minus a knife. As soon as we were 
seated, each one reached forth his or her 
knife and fork and helped himself 

Presently Burt said, “ The teacher has n’t 
got nothing to eat.” 

Do look after the marm a little,” 
snapped Mrs. Frisbie; “my man here don’t 
care whether anybody but himself has any¬ 
thing to eat or not.” 

The mutual recrimination that followed 
was stopped by a knock at the door. 

4 


50 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

** Wall, now,’^ said the paternal head as he 
opened the door, “ we’d gin you up. Come, 
in, come in,” and to my surprise Mr. 
Cameron entered. Little as I was ac¬ 
quainted with him, I felt a sense of relief 
and protection in his presence. 

“You see,” explained Mr. Frisbie, “I 
heerd about your great doings Wednesday 
afternoons, and I thought I’d like to have a 
crack with the parson and the marm on 
religion. There’s nothing I like so well as 
to arger. Set up and help yourself as we 
do. My woman she thought the marm 
would be tired and would need a hearty* 
and rolishin’ supper.” 

After this evidence of their kind inten¬ 
tions in regard to me, I made heroic efforts 
to eat in spite of the soiled table-cloth and 
dishes. Desiring to say something pleas¬ 
ant, I remarked to my hostess, in a style 
suited to her comprehension, “ This ginger¬ 
bread is real good, Mrs. Frisbie.” 

“ Good ! ” she returned, loftily, “ Good ! 
It orter be. I put a hull tea-cupful of mo¬ 
lasses into it.” 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 5 I 

After we left the table, Mr. Frisbie is¬ 
sued his manifesto in this wise : — 

“ Now, see here! I give you the odds 
two to one, and I ’ll arger this matter of re¬ 
ligion with you, and I ’ll bet ten dollars I ’ll 
beat you all holler. 

•‘‘Mr. Frisbie,” said Mr. Cameron, gravely, 
“ I am sorry if it was for this purpose that 
you invited us here. I cannot of course 
answer for Miss Deane, but as far as I am 
concerned, I must refuse to take up the 
gauntlet. You cannot tell me, nor I you, 
how the spring sunshine and rain is ab¬ 
sorbed into the earth, and comes up con¬ 
densed into buttercups and dandelions. 
You cannot explain to me the noiseless 
change from golden into poor old gray¬ 
headed dandelions — as I heard one of 
your scholars call them. Miss Deane. If 
you had never seen it, Mr. Frisbie, you 
would hardly believe me were I to tell you 
that six weeks would change the bleak 
dreary fields from winter brown into blos¬ 
soming green. You would find it difficult 
to convince the dwellers in the tropics 


52 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

that water can become so solid that a per¬ 
son could walk upon it with impunity. We 
do not understand these things, yet we ac¬ 
cept them as facts, because we know them 
to be true. Just so in our religious be¬ 
liefs. You can ask me questions that I 
cannot answer: you can bring forward 
things that I cannot explain. Yet there 
will still remain the great fact of God’s ex¬ 
istence, and our Duty, as created beings, to 
Him. If you were talking merely to re¬ 
solve honest doubts, and find out what 
your duty really is, sincerely seeking the 
truth, I should not despair of convincing 
your Reason that the Bible is our best 
guide. But to discuss the matter simply 
for the sake of arguing, is worse than use¬ 
less. In nature God gives us facts to deal 
with. He does not tell us the Why and 
How; that we must work out for ourselves. 
And even a child’s questions the deepest 
thinker cannot answer. So, also, in Divine 
things, we must trust and wait; for the 
mysteries that we cannot fathom now, we 
may understand in the great hereafter. 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 53 

Mr. Frisbie looked dissatisfied, and kept 
recurring to the subject, yet Mr. Cameron 
as skillfully avoided it, telling pleasant 
anecdotes, and taking no notice of the fre¬ 
quent scoffs and innuendoes against Chris¬ 
tianity, yet presenting in all his lively con¬ 
versation the pure gospel truth, till in spite 
of my past leaning toward Sorosis, I was 
obliged to confess that there is a great deal 
of moral power in being a man, after all. 

As we walked hort^ that night, I re¬ 
marked that I had never been so nearly a 
believer in Darwin’s theory of the origin of 
man, as since meeting Mr. Frisbie, and I 
wondered why God let such people live. 
“Jesus Christ thought Mr. Frisbie’s soul 
worth dying for,” he answered gravely; 
and I felt the rebuke, for now, as of old, 
many whom we scorn will perhaps go into 
the kingdom of heaven before us. But I 
ceased to wonder at Burt’s reply when I 
first urged him to prayer. “ I can’t ask 
Him, teacher; God don’t never come to 
our house.” 


CHAPTER IV. 


PROPHECY FULFILLED. 

H ave you learned your prophecy ? 

I wonder how many times I heard 
that question asked during the succeeding 
week. I counted for a day or two, till I 
concluded that there was nothing with 
which to compare the number but the 
leaves of Vallambrosa. 

“ What is your verse, Eben ? ” 

It was Ida who made the inquiry one 
recess, and his eyes sparkled maliciously as 
he replied with great promptness, “ I have 
not fully decided, but I think I shall take 
this one: ‘ And there appeared a great 
wonder in heaven — a woman.’ ” 

“ There is n’t any such verse in the 
Bible,” cried Mamie. 

“ Please read Revelation twelfth, first,” 
he replied composedly. 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 55 

Well,” said Willis, after he had looked 
it out, “ that is just tlie way a great many 
people try to prove things ; take part of a 
verse and make it mean something entirely 
different from what was intended.” 

‘‘ I had to take part of a verse for Bessie’s 
prophecy,” said Bob Sawyer. spent 
more than an hour Sunday trying to ham¬ 
mer it into her little brains, but all the way 
I could teach her the fulfillment, was in the 
shape of a story.” 

I wish we might all tell ours that way, 
and see if the others know the name,” was 
the eager suggestion of Bell Stanton. 

“ Can we, Miss Deane } ” 

Yes, those who choose may give it in 
the form of a story, and let the others, if 
they can, tell the subject of the prophecy.” 

So when the right time came on Wednes¬ 
day afternoon, Bessie Sawyer thus began : 
“ * It shall be a place for the spreading of 
nets in the midst of the sea.’ Once there 
was a man, and he went to an island, and 
he saw an old fisherman and an old woman. 
And he said, ‘ What are you doing } ’ And 


56 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

they said, * we are hanging up our nets to 
dry ;' and that’s all, cause Bob made me 
say it to him every day.” 

“ Well done ! ” said Mr. Cameron, you 
have earned your book, Bessie ; ” and the 
blue covered “ Songs for the Little Ones at 
Home,” made her chubby hands fairly trem¬ 
ble with delight. “ Now who can tell the 
name of the once powerful city on the 
island, which God predicted should be de¬ 
stroyed ? ” 

** It was Tyre,” said Ida, and conscien¬ 
tiously added, “ I knew, because my own 
verses were about the same city.” 

Now it was Julie’s turn. “ ‘Thorns shall 
come in her palaces.’ God said it more ’n 
a thousand years ago, and now the nice 
houses are all broken down, and folks carry 
pincers round in their pockets, — no, I 
mean girdles, to pick the thorns out of 
their feet, ’cause they are so thick.” 

“ And what was the name of the place ? ” 

Before any one else could answer, Julie 
piped out, “ I-du-me-ar.” 

“ My verse is about that, too,” said Delly 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS, 


57 

Smith. “ * The cormorants shall possess it.’ 
There’s such big flocks of ’em that the 
Arab boys can kill two or three at a time 
by throwing a stick at ’em.” 

And when these prophecies were given,” 
said Mr. Cameron,” Edom or Idumea had 
large cities with paved streets, and magnifi¬ 
cent dwellings ornamented in front with 
lofty columns. It was a populous and 
powerful nation for years after Isaiah fore¬ 
told its doom.” 

Daisy Smith’s time had now come. She 
tried to speak, but in her embarrassment 
quite forgot the verse in regard to Lebanon 
which she had recited to me only that noon. 
** The trees of his forest shall be few that a 
child may write them.” Poor little Daisy ! 
she twisted her handkerchief, then sud¬ 
denly rose, but instead of the expected 
prophecy, she repeated in her sweet lisping 
voice, Shuffer little children to come unto 
me, and forbid them not, for of thucth ith 
the kingdom of heaven.” 

There were tears in Mr. Cameron’s eyes, 
and his voice was full of tenderness, as he 


58 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

held out a Tract Primer, saying, “ My dear 
little child, you have given us the sweetest 
truth of the whole Bible.” 

“ ‘ Your highways shall be desolate/ ” 
recited Clarence Wescott. That was 
written 3,300 years ago, and now it is said 
that there is not a wagon nor a cart in all 
Syria. There are no inns ; the rivers are 
not bridged, and the ancient roads are 
many of them impassable.” 

“ My father thinks this verse foretells 
the invention of railroad cars,” said Horace 
Waite, and he repeated Nahum second, 
fourth.” The chariots shall rage in the 
streets, they shall jostle one against another 
in the broad ways ; they shall seem like 
torches, they shall run like the lightnings.” 

Bell Stanton was ready the moment he 
stopped speaking. ‘‘ Once there was a 
woman and her son all alone on the desert. 
She thought her little boy was going to die, 
he was so thirsty ; so she laid him under a 
small tree, and went away and covered up 
her eyes so as not to see him, and just 
cried as hard as she could. And then an 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 59 

angel called to her and told her not to be 
afraid, for her son should live and be a 
great nation. And she looked round and 
there was a well of water close to her, so 
she gave him a good drink. And God said 
he should be a wild man, his hand against 
every man, and every man’s hand against 
him ; and his descendants are the only 
people who can’t be conquered. They live 
in tents now, and rob everybody they can 
get hold of, and every word God said about 
them has come true.” 

“Anybody knows that you mean Ishmael 
and the Arabs,” said Dan Van. 

“More than 2,5CK) years ago,” began 
Nellie Scott, “there was a city so large 
that it was sixty miles round it. The wall 
was one hundred feet high, and had 1,500 
towers upon it, so the people laughed at 
the idea of its ever falling into the hands 
of their enemies. But the Lord said it 
would be taken by means of a great flood ; 
and that at that time the inhabitants would 
many of them be drunk. He foretold also 
that the palace would be burned, and the 


60 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

whole city be a desolation forever. One 
day there came a hard rain, and it kept on 
till there was a great freshet in the river, 
which overflowed, and knocked down ever 
so much of the wall, and the Medes rushed 
in. The people of the city had just been 
supplied with wine, and they were many 
of them intoxicated. When they found 
their enemies were all round the streets, 
the king was so frightened that he set fire 
to the palace and burned himself and all 
his family to death. At this time there is 
not even a stone left to show where the 
city once stood. Now if any one should 
come here and tell us that Coleraine was 
going to be destroyed by a freshet in Mill 
River, and that the school-house would be 
burned the same day ; that at the time all 
this happened we should be having a 
general pic-nic ; and that none of the 
houses would ever be rebuilt, I guess if 
it proved true we should believe all the 
other things the prophet told us.” 

“That city was Nineveh,” added Willis. 

Clara Esty continued : “ And there was 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS, 61 

a city near Nineveh which God said should 
be destroyed. The Bible predicted the 
very time when it should be taken, and the 
name of the leader, Cyrus, one hundred 
years before he was born ; the manner of 
capture, which would be by drying up the 
river. Isaiah said that God would open 
before Cyrus the two-leaved gates, and they 
should hot be shut. The river gate opened 
by two leaves or divisions, and was left 
unlocked the night that the city was cap¬ 
tured. God prophesied also that that very 
evening the king’s knees should shake with 
fear ; and so they did when he saw the 
Hand writing on the wall, “ Mene, Tekel, 
Upharsin.” The inhabitants trusted for 
safety to the fact that the Euphrates River 
flowed through the city. But Cyrus dug a 
great ditch so that the water ran off and 
left the bed of the river dry. Through 
that the enemy ,rushed in, and the king 
was killed that very night.” 

“ Babylon,” said Bob Sawyer. 

Many other prophecies were then given 
in regard to the Destruction of Jerusalem, 


62 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

the Coming of Christ; the Preservation of 
the Jewish nation, etc. Indeed, there was 
no time left for Mr. Cameron to address' 
them ; but he said he was glad of it, he 
would rather hear them. Willis, the schol¬ 
ars agreed, had the most interesting proph¬ 
ecy of any. It was taken from the thir¬ 
ty-fifth chapter of Jeremiah. ‘‘ One day 
during the year 606 b. c. a middle-aged 
man invited a number of strangers into 
one of the chambers of the temple at Jeru¬ 
salem, and placed wine before them. He 
brought cups, and urged them to drink, 
but they refused. Jonadab, the son of 
Rechab, their father, had forbidden them to 
drink wine, they said. Moreover he had 
directed them neither to build houses nor 
plant vineyards, but to dwell in tents. 
They were not living in the city then, onl}'^ 
as they fled there for refuge. So they 
would take no wine, but obeyed their 
father, and God was pleased with them, 
and said, * Jonadab, the son of Rechab, 
shall not want a man to stand before me 
forever.’ 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 63 

A few years ago a caravan was journey¬ 
ing across an Arabian desert, when they 
suddenly perceived a large body of armed 
men coming out from a cave which they 
were approaching, one of whom came up 
and demanded a certain amount of tribute 
in return for their passing through the 
Rechabite’s country. Finding themselves 
powerless to resist, the travelers promised 
to pay the demand. That evening one of 
them invited some of the inhabitants of the 
cave to drink with him, but they answered 
him in just the words of the Bible, ‘ We 
will drink no wine ; for Jonadab, the son of 
Rechab, our father, commanded us, saying. 
Ye'shall drink no wine, ye nor your sons 
forever.’ ” 

“ Accounts of the Rechabites now,” 
added Mr. Cameron, give their number 
as 60,000. So that while most of the na¬ 
tions of Old Testament times have been 
lost for centuries, these still remain, un¬ 
conscious witnesses to God’s foreknowl¬ 
edge, power, and truth.” 

It was now time for our closing verse, 


64 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

For the prophecy came not in old time 
by the will of man; but holy men of God 
spake as they were moved by the Holy 
Ghost” 

Was Burt’s verse of his own selection, 
Miss Deane ? ” asked Mr. Cameron after 
school. 

“ Yes,” I replied, ‘‘ I suppose he chanced 
upon it because it was in the last chapter 
of his Testament.” 

am not sure of that,” he replied mus¬ 
ingly ; did you notice his face as he re¬ 
peated it, * Behold, I come quickly.’ I 
think to him it seemed a prophecy of near 
fulfillment.” 


CHAPTER V. 


A BUTTON AND ITS STORY. 

T) ESSIE, you naughty, naughty girl! 

-U where did you get that ? ” Bob 
spoke in an angry, excited tone, and hastily 
snatched a brass button from her. 

It was the first time I had ever seen him 
harsh to his little sister. Her chin quiv¬ 
ered, the blue eyes filled with tears, and 
her low-voiced reply was inaudible to me. 

“There! there! there! don’t cry, Midg- 
et,l! said Bob, soothingly, beginning to feel 
a little compuncted, as Dan Van bluntly 
remarked. 

“ Here, you little Remnant of Human¬ 
ity,” called Eben, “ take my big slate, and 
play tic tac tuo with Julie Meigs.” 

The little Remnant’s face cleared in¬ 
stantly. Eben’s wonderful book-slate was 
the summum bonum to the primer class. 

5 


66 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

He transferred it to her eager hands, and 
walked hastily out to avoid Ida’s commen¬ 
dation : Really a praiseworthy act, and 
quite creditable to you.” 

Burt also had a comment to offer after 
his own odd fashion. Eben is just like a 
stick of elder ; if the bark is ever so thick, 
it's all soft inside.” 

“ I suppose I am quick tempered,” said 
Bob, apologetically, “ but this button is one 
of my most precious things. I could sell 
it for five dollars, because it came from a 
Revolutionary uniform, but I would not 
part with it for ten times that, on account 
of the history connected with it.” 

“ Oh tell us the story ! ” cried Mamie the 
Unquenchable. 

“It belonged to my great-grandfather,” 
replied Bob, “ and he was captain in our 
army during the Revolution. One after¬ 
noon it happened that he was stationed 
near home, so he went over there, though 
he knew the British were near. My great¬ 
grandmother noticed that this button was 
loose, so she pulled it off, and went for her 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS, 6/ 

needle and thread to sew it on. But it 
seems there was a spy in our camp who 
had gone over and reported to the British 
that there was a fine chance for them to 
take a prisoner ; and when she went to the 
window for her work-box, she saw four 
mounted soldiers in front of the house. 
They tied their horses under the great oak- 
tree close by the window ; sent one man 
to the back door (which fortunately was 
locked), and then thumped with their whips 
on the front one. 

‘ I am lost! ’ said my great-grand¬ 
father. 

“ ^ No, ’ she replied, ‘ you have only to 
jump out of the window as they come into 
the dark entry, and I will stand in the door 
and* block the way while you climb the oak- 
tree.’ 

“No sooner said than done, and she held 
the British at bay till he was safe in the 
branches. They swore fearfully after they 
had searched the house and found he was n’t 
there. When they untied their horses 
under the tree, they planned in a low voice 


68 • FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

to return in the course of the night with a 
larger party, and approach the house more 
carefully. They did not once think to look 
up in the tree, and rode off without sus¬ 
pecting that their own horses had helped 
him to climb out of their way. After they 
had gone, of course he hurried off, and the 
button has been kept in the family ever 
since. There,” concluded Bob, “ that story 
has never been printed in a history, but it 
is just as true for all that.” 

“ What is there beside your word to 
prove that it is an authentic narrative ? ” I 
asked. 

“ Why the button is n’t like any they 
have now, and besides we have got one of 
grandfather’s old letters telling about it.” 

“ Do you know that the letter is n’t a 
forgery ? ” 

‘‘Yes’m. It is an old-fashioned paper, 
thick, and sort of ribbed, and yellow with 
lying so long. The s’s are made like fs, 
and grandmother says she remembers hear¬ 
ing him say it ought to be put into print. 
Then the oak-tree is there yet, or at least 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 69 

the stump of it, and I don’t see why it 
would n’t be likely to be true, when the 
story has been kept up so many years. 
Besides,” he added proudly, “our family 
don’t tell lies, and even if they did there is 
nothing to make it for their interest to say 
so if it was n’t the truth.” 

“ Suppose we apply these same tests to 
the Bible,” I said, “ its history and wonder¬ 
ful preservation, and the apparent motives 
of its writers. I did not intend to take up 
this subject at the next general exercise, 
but Bob has made such a good opening 
that I think we will. Mr. Cameron offered 
to lend us books on the history of the Bible, 
from which you can learn interesting facts ; 
and if Willis will bring them to-morrow, 
you can prepare yourselves.” 

The result of much study appeared 
Wednesday afternoon on this wise, Willis 
leading the way : — 

“ My first proof that the Bible, which con¬ 
tains the oldest books in the world, is really 
the work of God, is its having been pre¬ 
served so many years under such discour- 


70 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

agements ; just as Bob believes his story 
because it has been kept up so long, he 
says. When Antiochus, one of the Roman 
emperors, took Jerusalem, he killed about 
40,000 of the inhabitants, and commanded 
that whoever was found with a Book of the 
Law in his possession, should be put to 
death, and the book burned. Only 400 
years ago the price of a manuscript Bible 
in Latin was equal to 1^1,400 of our money. 
Yet now the Scriptures are translated into 
more than one hundred different languages, 
and one American society has already sent 
out 30,000,000 copies.” 

‘‘The Bible was translated into Anglo- 
Saxon by the Venerable Bede,” continued 
Jennie Brewster, “ and he is said to have 
finished the Gospel of St. John the very 
day he died. He lay on a low bed, breath¬ 
ing slowly and faintly. ‘ Now, dearest mas¬ 
ter, there remains but one chapter more, 
but the exertion will be too great for you,’ 
said the young scribe. ‘ It is easy, my son, 
it is easy,’ he replied. ‘ Take your pen and 
write quickly, for I know not how soon my 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 71 

Master will take me.’ After a time the 
scribe said, * Dear master, only one sen¬ 
tence is wanting.’ He gave that, and fell 
back, t It is finished, it is finished,’ he re¬ 
peated, ‘ lift up my head and place me in 
the spot where I am accustomed to pray.’ 
They did so, and he said softly, ‘ Glory be 
to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,’ 
and these were his last words.” 

It seems as if he was just the one to 
translate St. John,” said Clara, “he was 
such a gentle, tender man. I have heard it 
stated that when St. John was old and in¬ 
firm he used to be carried to church, and 
that as soon as he crossed the threshold he 
always repeated the verse, ^ Little children, 
love one another.’ ” 

“ The first complete translation of the 
Bible into English,” said Ida, “ was Wic- 
lifs. The hatred of the rulers was so great 
that forty years after he was buried, they 
took up his dead body, burned it, and 
threw the ashes into the river Avon. And 
many of the people were put to death just 
for reading the Scriptures/' 


72 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

“ The first Bible printed in English was 
Tyndale’s version,” said Nellie Scott, and 
'the government was so angry, that in 1526 
they instituted a secret search for it. Some 
of the students of an Oxford college had 
hidden copies of it under the flooring. 
These were found, and ten of the students 
were thrown into a dark damp cellar where 
salt fish was kept. Nothing was given 
them to eat, but they subsisted for a while 
on the fish packed there. Four of them 
died. After some weeks, the remaining 
six were allowed to come out, and one of 
them was the John Frith who assisted 
Tyndale in his translation. No one could 
print this version in England under pain 
of death, and they were obliged to hire 
a press in Germany. As soon as Cardinal 
Wolsey heard that they had done this, he 
sent an agent with money to buy all the 
books printed in the English language in 
the place where he supposed the Bibles 
were. But they were concealed in bundles 
of flax, and smuggled into England. Find¬ 
ing they coiild not get Tyndale and Frith 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 73 

into their power, Sir Thomas More and 
Wolsey pretended friendship for them, and 
invited them to return home. Frith be¬ 
lieved their promises and came back. But 
by means of a spy they arrested him, and 
threw him into a dungeon, loaded with 
chains, and bound to a post by an iron col¬ 
lar, so that he could neither sit down, nor 
stand upright. Yet through all the torture 
he kept cheerful and happy, and wrote 
comforting words to his friends, by the 
light of the dim candle that was given him. 
He was burned at the stake at Smithfield, 
and rejoiced that the wind blew the flames 
the wrong way, because though it prolonged 
his own agony, it lessened that of his fellow 
martyr. Tyndale was also finally burned, 
his last words being, ‘ Lord, ope the king 
of England’s eyes.’ ” 

“ I did n’t know it took so much to save 
us the Bible,” said Burt with a deep sigh. 

Yes,” I answered, ‘ Salvation’s free to 
you and me,’ but it cost an infinite sum 
even to retain God’s precious words.” 

“The Bible has been preserved unal- 


74 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

tered,” said Ira. “There are nearly 1,150 
manuscript copies of the Old Testament in 
the original languages, and they have been 
proved to agree with one another in all the 
essential points. The Jews reverenced 
them ■ so highly, that they would suffer 
death itself rather than have them changed 
in the least. They never even stepped 
upon a piece of paper, it is said, for fear the 
name of God might be upon it. And they 
counted the number of words in the Bible, 
to be sure that they were kept unchanged. 
There is no book in the world so widely 
quoted from as the New Testament, all the 
quotations exactly agreeing with our Script¬ 
ures.” 

“ Don’t you think it was curious. Miss 
Deane,” asked Bob, “ how God prepared 
the way for bringing the books into Eng¬ 
land, when the government was watching 
so closely to keep them out } I read that 
there was a famine on account of a great 
rain in planting time, and that the books 
were brought into the country hid among 
the wheat and rye that was imported. One 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 75 

man loaded his ship with grain, and con¬ 
cealed 500 Bibles in it.” 

‘‘And I can give an instance of what 
Ira spoke of,” added Clara. “ It was only 
four years after the death of St. John, that 
Ignatius was thrown to lions to be devoured, 
because he would not deny Christ. At the 
trial, the cruel judges said to him, in mock¬ 
ery of his own words, ‘ Thou bearest then 
in thyself Him who was crucified.’ His 
only answer was, ‘Yes, for it is written, I 
will dwell in them and walk in them; ^ 
and this reply is in the exact words of 
Second Corinthians, sixth, sixteenth.” 

“ My dear scholars,” I said, “ will you not 
each one take home with you the words of 
that dying martyr, — ‘ Thou bearest then in 
thyself Him who was crucified.’ How many 
of you show a hidden Christ in your daily 
lives } Watch carefully, pray earnestly, lest 
your hearts grow like that house in Bethle¬ 
hem, of which it is written, ‘ there was no 
room for them in the inn.’ ” 

“ Teacher,” said Burt, lingering a moment 
after school to walk home with me, “ will 
they let bound boys go to heaven ? ” 


76 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS 

** They will let all who love our dear 
Lord,” I made answer. 

** Then,” he said, hopefully, I think there 
will be a place for mesthere pretty soon. I 
should n’t take up so much room now as if 
I was older,” he added reflectively, and his 
strange, wistful smile brought unbidden 
tears to my eyes. After a moment he went 
on, “ Mr. Frisbie told a story last night 
about getting lost in the woods, and going 
round and round in a circle, till at last he 
found some tracks that all pointed out, he 
thought, and by following them he got 
safely home. And I’ve noticed that God’s 
foot-prints all go the same way, so I think if 
I can only keep in them may be I shall fol¬ 
low Him clear home. I thought last night 
that Jesus came to me and said, ‘ Burt, I 
want you to follow me.’ May be my mind 
was just listening to itself, but it did seem 
as if He said it. Any way, if I don’t lose 
the path, F am going to try to keep with 
Him.” 


CHAPTER VI. 


THE MAN WITH THE GOLD WATCH. 


HERE ’S Heart’s-ease ? ” asked 



Clara, the next Wednesday morn¬ 


ing. 


“ Miss Jennie Brewster has gone home 
for her algebra, if I have correctly trans¬ 
lated your school-girl vernacular,” answered 
Eben. 

Don’t be sarcastic,” she retorted, “ re¬ 
member the fable of the frog. Jennie is 
such a bright good-tempered thing that she 
always seems to cheer and hearten me up 
like the first violets of spring.” 

“ Yes,” added Willis, “she often reminds 
me of that heathen man’s definition of a 
happy person, ‘ One who has a white heart’ ” 
“ Ho ! ” remarked Mamie, scornfully, “ I 
should think she could afford to be cheer¬ 
ful, with all the cream candy and chocolate 


78 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

drops that she wants, and a blue silk dress 
with five flounces on it for Sundays. What 
I can’t understand is how the Bible trans¬ 
lators kept so happy in prison.” 

They knew they were suffering for the 
truth’s sake ; and God was with them,” I 
said. “ He helped them to bear it.” 

“ Well,” observed Eben, “ there are two 
kinds of amiability in the world ; that of 
nature, and that of grace. The amiability of 
nature is generally a rather namby-pamby 
thing; but if I should ever be converted 
and get that of grace, I’d try to do some 
good in the world.” 

I think it would make a great change 
in you, Eben, if you became a Christian,” 
I said, seriously. 

“ I should have to give up hectoring Nell, 
I suppose.” 

“ And I,” said Mamie, “ should have to 
learn, if I was a Christian, not to jerk and 
snap out at mother when she combs the 
snarls out of my hair in the morning.” 

“ Nor I could n’t keep teasing for things,” 
added Bell Stanton, regretfully. 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 79 

“ I ’spose I should n’t take lumps out of 
the sugar bowl,” continued Julie Meigs. 

As I rose to ring the bell, Willis said, “ I 
think, after all, Miss Deane, the best proof 
of the truth of Christianity is the change it 
makes ^n people’s lives.” 

“ I have a story to tell you,” I announced 
that afternoon. “ There was once a col6nel 
in the army,“an infidel, who declared that 
Christians were no better than other peo¬ 
ple. One day as he was traveling alone on 
horseback, he lost his way on the prairie, 
till at last in the midst of a hard rain he 
found himself benighted near a small log 
house. He entered and asked for a night’s 
shelter, which was promised him by a 
wrinkled old woman, who immediately be¬ 
gan to prepare a meal of fried bacon and 
hominy. He thoughtlessly drew out his 
gold watch to ascertain the time. This 
attracted her attention, and she left the 
stove to admire it. Soon an old man en¬ 
tered, and she expressed a wish that he 
also should see it. Presently three stal¬ 
wart sons, armed with guns and knives, 


80 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

came in and stacked their weapons in a 
corner. They also examined the watch 
with envious eyes, and rough hands. Now 
it chanced that the colonel had a large 
sum of money about him, and as the mem¬ 
ory of certain stories of robbery and mur¬ 
der flashed over him, he vainly wished 
himself back in the rain again. He asked 
to be shown his room. Its door swung 
open from the kitchen on leather hinges, 
and had neither lock nor latch save a 
wooden button which had been broken as 
if purposely to give ready ingress to out¬ 
siders. 

‘ Well,’ said he to himself, ‘ there is no 
sleep for me to-night. I will push the bed 
against the door, and sit with my revolver 
pointed towards it till morning, for if nec¬ 
essary I will at least , sell my life as dearly 
as possible.’ After a while he was called 
to supper, and remained in the kitchen, 
feeling that the presence of even that weird 
looking old woman was some protection. 
About nine o’clock the old man rose, and 
taking a well worn Bible from a high self. 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 8 1 

said, * We alius haf e prayers, stranger, and I 
reckon it’s about time for it now.’ He read 
a few verses, then all knelt down, and in his 
simple backwoods phrase he asked God to 
take care of them through the night, and 
especially of the stranger whom He had led 
there. After the earnest prayer had ceased 
they all dispersed to their beds.” 

“ How many think that the colonel sat 
up all night holding a loaded revolver } ” 
Utter silence. 

“ How many guess that he slept soundly 
till morning.?” Every hand lifted its af¬ 
firmation. 

Now,” I continued, “ when any unbe¬ 
liever suggests that there is nothing in re¬ 
ligion, you can tell them this story, and ask 
them, why, if their assertion is true, the 
colonel was no longer alarmed after he 
found he was under a Christian roof” 

“ I believe I should know the Bible was 
God’s Word any way,” said Bob Sawyer, 
‘‘ because it sounds exactly like what jou 
would expect Him to say.” 

Oh, that is just what I was going to 
6 


82 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

tell,” interposed Mamie, eagerly. “There was 
an African chief who said to a missionary, 
‘ I don’t believe you could teach us how to 
make paper talk.’ So one of the scholars 
was sent away, and the chief gave the mis¬ 
sionary a word which was written with a 
stick on the sand. The scholar was called 
back and repeated the word at once, and 
the chief was so surprised he did not know 
what to think. 

“ But when they read to him from the Bi¬ 
ble, he said, ‘ White men are indeed very 
clever. They make rolling houses, guns, 
and powder. They are masters of every¬ 
thing but death. But with all that I do 
not believe them clever enough to have 
made the Bible.’ ” 

“The language is wonderful, I think,” 
said Nellie Scott, “ it is so uniform, and yet 
it is the work of over thirty different writ¬ 
ers, who were so unlike. Amos was a 
herdsman ; David, a king ; Luke, the be¬ 
loved physician ; Ezra, a priest; Matthew, 
a tax-gatherer, and Peter and John, fisher¬ 
men. And the sixty-six books of the Bible 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS, 83 

were written at intervals during 1,500 years. 
Yet there is the most perfect agreement 
throughout. And in the whole of the Old 
Testament there are but 5,642 different 
words used, while Shakespeare’s writings 
contain 15,000. If thirty men should build 
a hou^e together, each taking certain por¬ 
tions to construct, I don’t believe the parts 
would all fit into each other exactly, .unless 
there had been one architect in charge. 
And only God could have inspired and di¬ 
rected such a work as the Bible.” 

“ I have read some of the miracles given 
in false epistles,” said Willis, *‘and they 
seem so foolish beside our New Testament 
stories, that I should not think any one 
could help seeing the difference between 
the words of God, and the writings of 
men.” 

Do you remember any of them ? ” 

*‘It is said that the clothes that Jesus 
wore when he was little, could n’t be made 
to burn when thrown into the fire. That 
one day he was playing with a lot of boys 
on the top of a house, when one of them 


84 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

fell off and was killed. His relatives said 
to Christ, * Thou didst throw our son down 
from the house-top.’ ^ Come and ask him,’ 
he replied ; and called his name, saying, 
‘ Who threw thee down 'I ’ And the dead 
lips unclosed and spoke these words, 
* Thou didst not throw me down, but such 
an one.’ A boy gathering partridge eggs 
was bitten by a serpent. He told Jesus, 
who immediately led him back to the place, 
and called upon the serpent to come out, 
saying, ‘ Go suck out all the poison thou 
hast infused into that boy.’ So the snake 
crept up dreadfully ashamed, and took it 
out, and soon after died.” 

“ I don’t think such stories as that would 
make people any better for reading them,” 
said Clara Esty, “ but the good effects of 
the Bible show more and more every day. 
Among the heathen, the old people were 
put to death to get them out of the way, 
and they took no care of the poor and the 
sick. Women were nothing but slaves ; 
and sometimes 20,000 persons a month 
were killed at the gladiatorial shows. 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 85 

Christianity always precedes civiliza¬ 
tion,” I added. 

Teacher,” said Burt on the way home, 
‘‘Mr. Frisbie has an old broken spy-glass 
that he bought at auction for twenty-five 
cents, and last night I went out to look at 
the stars through it. I could n’t see one, 
but I knew the stars were there all the 
same. So I looked at the glass, and it was 
full of cobwebs. You know Mr. Frisbie 
don’t believe as you do, and I’ve been 
thinking that may be his mind is full of 
cobwebs, and God is there all the same, if 
he don’t see Him. But he says I’m such 
a little good-for-naught, that the Lord 
would not care anything about my prayers, 
even if He heard them.” 

“ My dear child,” I said, “ let me try to 
explain it to you, though perhaps I shall 
not make you understand it. Have you 
ever heard of that great bell in Moscow, 
three times as tall as any man in town, and 
larger round than any room in Mr. Frisbie’s 
house } It takes twelve men just to ring it. 
Now how do you suppose they find the 


86 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS, 

pitch of such a huge thing ? Why they 
only have to play a little flute under it, and 
when the right note is struck, the note 
with which it is in unison, the great bell 
vibrates in response. Just so prayer 
should be the key-note of our little lives 
which brings us in harmony with the great 
God. 

We have but to come to Him, with our 
hearts in unison with his, and we shall feel 
the answering thrill of a divine accord in 
our souls.” 

‘^You mean,” he said, ^‘that I am the 
flute, and God the great bell; and I must 
pray until my soul gets on to the right note, 
and then I shall feel Him answering me.” 


CHAPTER VII. 


A STRANGE CORRESPONDENCE. 

\ T 7 HAT is the subject for next week 

V V Miss Deane, and do we look out 
verses ? ” 

“ I will tell you at recess, Bob,” I an¬ 
swered; “for I am just going up to Mrs. 
Wilbur's. She has invited me there to eat 
cherries this noon.” 

“ Oh dear ! ” sighed Mamie ; “ what shall 
we do while you are gone. There's Clara, 
and Jennie, and Nellie have gone out into 
the entry to study together, and they’ve 
got Ida’s shawl spread over their heads so 
they shall not see anything to take off their 
attention. They won’t let me come any¬ 
where near them.” 

“ I ’ll propose an experiment,” I replied. 
“ Eben may take the key to the outside door 


88 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

and after I have gone send out two of the 
boys, and then lock the door. Burt and 
Clarence can be trusted ; they are honor¬ 
able boys and will not listen under the win¬ 
dows. Then Eben may ask any questions 
that he chooses, and in about ten minutes 
send Burt and Clarence up for a written 
answer from me, and you can see how well 
the two sentences will correspond. 

All gave pleased assent, and straightway 
I departed. 

“Now,” said Eben, “we will not tempt 
those two honorable boys ; ” and locking 
the door behind them, he drew out pencil 
and paper, and wrote : “ Do cats eat dande¬ 
lions } ” After showing the question to the 
canopied trio in the entry, with a caution 
not to read it aloud, he held it before each 
one in the school-room in utter silence, and 
then deliberately tore it into pieces. Burt 
and Clarence meanwhile had commenced 
teetering on a long board thirty rods away. 
Eben, who allowed no one but himself to 
approach the windows, observed this fact; 
also that Mr. Wilbur was approaching the 
school-house with a basket of cherries. 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 89 

Hulloa! ” he shouted as he drew near, 
** come and take this, some of you, for I'm 
in a hurry. It is for you scholars — my wife 
sent it. And the teacher says she left her 
handkerchief somewhere here, and she 
wishes you’d send it back by me.” 

Eben found the missing article on the 
floor-K)ut in the hall, near the nail where 
my shawl was hung. . Having carefully ex¬ 
amined it to see that no paper was attached 
to it, he exchanged parcels with Mr. Wil¬ 
bur, who immediately returned home. At 
the end of ten minutes he whistled to the 
boys, that being the preconcerted signal 
for them to go after my reply. The schol¬ 
ars saw them approach Mr. Wilbur’s house. 
A paper was thrown from the window, 
which they picked up, and instantly started 
to return without opening it. 

Ebeh himself read it to the eager group. 

I never heard that cats ate dandelions; 
but the French are said to be very fond of 
them, and even of their roots.” 

Great was the astonishment of the schol¬ 


ars. 


go FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

“ I would n’t be quite so demonstrative, 
Miss Rogers,” said Eben ; I don’t know 
as your special individual wonderment is 
any greater than mine, but I try not to go 
up like a rocket only to come down as a 
stick, for Miss Deane can’t work miracles.” 

I have it,” exclaimed Bob Sawyer ; 
“ our next subject is to be miracles, I guess, 
and this is to illustrate some point in it.” 

“ Let’s go and tell Miss Augusta Plum¬ 
mer,” urged Mamie ; “ I like to put her in 
a frenzy.” 

I don’t care to spend my time on su¬ 
perfluous people,” was Eben’s lofty reply. 

Don’t look in the glass, then,” she called 
back as she darted out in the direction of 
Miss Plummer s house. 

No, Miss Augusta did not believe a word 
of it. You need not tell her such stories. 

But I saw it,” persisted Mamie. 

“ Wait till I hear Ida Williams say it is 
true; she is a girl whose word can be re¬ 
lied on.” Mamie marched back in great 
wrath. 

The whole matter was deferred until 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 


91 

Wednesday, no one discovering the secret 
of communication. ‘‘ How many think it 
was a real miracle ” I then inquired. No 
hands were raised. 

“ Why not.? ” 

Because,” said Willis, there was not 
sufficient occasion for it to expect that God 
would work one.” y 

“ Yes, Willis, you are right; and in con¬ 
trast I want you all to see what a great 
reason there was why Christ should have 
had this power of working miracles. About 
the same time that He appeared, other per¬ 
sons arose claiming to be Jesus the Son of 
God. Now how were people to distinguish 
which was the true and which the false, 
except by this exhibition of miraculous 
power. Afterwards, his life, his words, and 
their fulfillment, proved Him divine, but at 
first it was this healing the sick, walk¬ 
ing on the water, and raising the dead, 
which showed the people that He had come 
from the Father, and would presently re¬ 
turn thither. As to my finding out Eben’s 
question, the affair was all arranged before- 


92 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

hand. I had that morning given Clara a 
bottle of invisible ink, a pen, and a stretcher 
such as is used in marking linen. I left my 
handkerchief purposely, and as soon as she 
heard the question she copied it in invisible 
ink upon it, so that after Mr. Wilbur re¬ 
turned, by holding the handkerchief to the 
fire the letters all came out black, and I 
could read it readily. That is the way with 
our human attempts at wonder working ; 
they can all be explained in accordance 
with natural principles and laws. Only 
God and his Son Jesus Christ can work 
miracles. You may name some that the 
Saviour wrought, wHich we find recorded 
in the New Testament.” 

“ He turned water into wine.” 

* The conscious water saw its God and 
blushed,’ ” quoted Nellie. 

*“He raised the dead.” 

He made a fish have money in its 
mouth.” 

Told a fig-tree to wither away.” 

Fed five thousand on a few small loaves 
and fishes.” 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 


93 

“ Cured the sick, the lame, the blind, and 
the deaf.” 

“ I wish I had been there,” murmured 
Horace. 

“ He stopped a great storm and made it 
clear off pleasant by saying, ‘Peace, be 
still.’ ” 

“ Do you notice,” I said, “ how all these 
things were done to make some one else 
happy.? When He was so hungry, and 
Satan said, ‘ Command these stones to be¬ 
come bread, so that you can eat,’ He re¬ 
fused to work a miracle selfishly, for his 
own comfort. How different they were 
from the pretended wonders of the heathen 
gods, whose priests used to tell lying stories 
about speaking trees and weeping lions ; 
tripods that moved themselves, and ser¬ 
pents with magic jewels in their heads.” 

“ Did n’t people believe a great deal in 
magic, in the olden time?’’was Willis’s 
query. 

“Yes; the Romans when they saw an 
eclipse used to clash pieces of brass to¬ 
gether, and hold up torches, supposing that 


94 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

thus they could rouse and relight the sun. 
Much that they thought miraculous we now 
know to be traceable to natural causes.” 

My sister had a dream last night, which 
she would like to relate,” observed Eben 
dryly. Nellie blushed, and looked reproach¬ 
fully at her brother. 

“ We should like very much to hear it,” 
I said, encouragingly. 

“ I suppose it was the German parable 
which my auntie read me last evening that 
made me dream it,” she began ; but I 
thought I went to you one day and said, ‘ I 
wish you would show me a miracle. Miss 
Deane.’ You took up a little apple seed 
that one of the scholars had thrown on the 
floor, and said * Look.’ You just pushed it 
into the ground, and, in an instant, two 
green leaves appeared, and a woody stem. 
It grew so fast that I could see the branches 
pushing themselves out, and in a moment 
it was a full-grown tree. Before I could 
ask you what caused the wonder, it was 
blushing all over with apple blossoms ; and 
they whitened, and fell like snow-flakes 


FINDING ms FOOT-PRINTS. 95 

upon the grass. Just as I turned to look 
at you, a green apple fell upon my head, 
and as I ran out from under the tree, a 
perfect shower of ripe ones rattled down. 
When I told you that I was satisfied now, 
that I had witnessed a miracle, you said I 
had seen the same thing many times before 
in my father’s orchard. ‘ But it took years 
to do it,’ I replied. ^ Yes,’ said you, ‘ but 
it is none the less God’s special work and 
care.’ Why, Miss Deane, it all seemed so 
real to me, I did n’t guess I was only dream¬ 
ing out a paraphrase of Nathan’s teaching.” 

“ God sometimes comes to us in night 
visions, just as He promised,” I said. “ And 
now perhaps we shall hear of a burning 
bush, as remarkable as your apple-tree, in 
the Old Testament miracles which we are 
going to review. Bessie may tell us what 
story she found in the Bible.” 

“ It was ’bout an old man, and his name 
was ’Lisha. When he was going up a hill, 
the children ran out and called him names, 
and said, ‘ Go up, you bald head.’ He 
turned round and looked at them, but they 


96 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

would n’t stop. So he told them God would 
make them sorry for it; and then two bears 
ran out of the woods amongst them, and 
tore forty-two ofjhe naughty children.” 

“ I’m glad I was n’t there,” said Julie 
Meigs, “ and I should n’t have said ‘ bald 
head ’ either. 1 always get grandpa’s glasses 
for him.” 

Daisy Smith’s courage failed her, and 
Delly next proceeded. “ The people were 
real thirsty, and they told Moses if he did n’t 
get them some water, they would throw 
stones at him just as fast as they could. 
He asked God what to do, and then he took 
a stick and struck the rock as hard as he 
could; and the water ran out, and they 
drank all they wanted.” 

Clarence.” 

“ One day when the king would n’t let 
them go out of Egypt, Moses just held up 
his hand toward the sky ; and for three 
days they could not see each other when 
they were in the same room, and they did 
not dare to move, it was so dark; but in 
the houses of the Israelites it was as light 
as day.” 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 


97 


“ Bell Stanton.” 

“One night when the king had told 
Moses again that he would not let them 
go, the Lord commanded the people to 
have each family kill a lamb, and put some 
of the blood upon the doorposts, and to 
stay at home all the evening, and eat the 
lamb, having on their girdles as for a jour¬ 
ney, and a staff in their hands, and shoes 
on their feet. So He passed over the chil¬ 
dren of Israel; but the next morning, in 
every house that was not marked in that 
way, they found the oldest child dead.” 

“ It does n’t seem as if such things could 
be true,” said the wondering Burt. 

“ Why do you have fire-crackers and tor¬ 
pedoes on the fourth of July rather than 
any other time } ” I asked. 

“ Because it is Independence Day.” 

“ Do you then believe that the Declara¬ 
tion of Independence was actually decided 
upon on the fourth of July 

“ Why, yes’m, or else we should not cel¬ 
ebrate it every year.” 

“ But the Passover, which the Jews still 
7 


98 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

keep, is celebrated in memory of the very 
night that Bell spoke of. That is one proof 
that this miracle took place. Another is, 
that Moses testifies to it. When I asked 
you this morning how you could be so sure 
that Ida Williams had had a present of one 
of Smith’s American Organs, when you had 
not seen it, you replied that Ira said so, 
and you did not think he knew how to tell 
a lie. I do not think Moses did either.” 

. Just here Horace Waite raised his hand. 

It is* raining in from this window. May 
I change to the front seat ? ” 

I gave the permission readily. 

Instantly Mamie was on the alert. 
“ Please, Miss Deane, may I go and sit 
with Bell } The wind comes in through 
this crack and makes me cold.” 

I walked up to her desk and stood for a 
moment in front of it. “Yes, if you are 
both quite still, and keep your arms folded.” 

Willis smiled. “ I guess,” he said, “ there 
are two kinds of testimony.” 

“ I know that Horace dislikes the front 
seat,” I answered, “ and he would not have 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 


99 

asked to change unless he had been really 
uncomfortable in his own desk. We all 
know that Mamie would not intentionally 
deceive ; but she sometimes expresses her 
feelings rather strongly. The reason I 
tested the width of the crack before I gave 
her permission to change, was because she 
is so fond of sitting with Bell, that she had 
an interested motive in her testimony. 
Now let us see if those who witnessed 
Christ’s miracles, his twelve Apostles, found 
it for their personal advantage to tell of 
them. It cost them years of poverty, 
weariness, and exile. Scorned and hated 
of men, persecuted from city to city, three 
of them died on the cross; one perished 
by the lance; one was thrown down from 
the Temple and stoned ; and nearly all of 
them are supposed to have met with a 
violent death. Do you think they testified 
of Christ from interested motives or hope 
of personal gain ? Could not a God whose 
power created the sun, have caused that 
darkness in the houses of the Egyptians ? 
Might not the Being who first gave life, 


100 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 


have taken it away from Egypt’s first-born ? 
Miracles were needed to prove the authen¬ 
ticity of his messages, and to show us that 
we have a personal God. And remember, 
each of you, this one fact: that there is no 
book claiming to be a divine revelation, 
that rests its title upon miracles, except 
the Bible. And the more you read its 
wonderful stories, the deeper will become 
your conviction of the truth of Nicodemus 
when he said, No man can do these mira¬ 
cles that thou doest, except God be with 
him.” 


CHAPTER VIIL 


‘*THEY ALL JIBE.” 

“ A RE you girls coming out to see us 

./a. play ball ? ” asked Bob. 

** I guess not this noon, though we’d 
like to all the same,” answered Clara, but 
we are very busy studying up for Wednes¬ 
day.” 

“ What’s the subject” inquired Eben 
indifferently. 

“ The collateral evidences of the truth 
of Christianity,” she replied. 

Is it possible,” said Ida, that you are 
really so culpably careless as not to know, 
Eben ! If you allow yourself in such in¬ 
dolent habits through youth, you will make 
very little of a man.” 

Let me make a note of that,” he re¬ 
sponded, briskly, seizing pencil and paper. 
** 1 don’t know of any one, Cousin Jda, 


102 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

whose memoir could be so easily written as 
yours ; and I intend to keep a record of 
your improving remarks, so that in -case I 
outlive you, I can become your biographer.” 

Ida did not reply in words, but her face 
betokened a hemorrhage of ideas, as Dan 
Van would probably have said had he been 
present. 

“ I have found eight proofs,” said Jennie 
Brewster, pleasantly, and, as old Uncle 
Asa Beckwith says, made them all jibe.” 

“ Who’s uncle Asa Beckwith } ” 

It is needless to state that the questioner 
was Mamie. 

He is an old man who saws wood for 
mother, and the other day he was telling 
me about his eight children. * Now,’ said 
he, ‘ I do like to have things jibe, so I ’ve 
named ’em Nauncy and Chauncey, and 
Polly and Dolly, and Patty and Hatty, and 
Arthur and Martha.’ * Do they look alike "i ’ 
I asked, by way of showing an interest. 
‘ Wall, no,’ said he, ‘ there ’ none of ’em 
looks alike except Arthur, and he looks 
alike.’ ” 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. . 103 

There was a general laugh, under cover 
of which the boys went out to their game 
of ball. 

We will begin with Jennie, and her 
eight proofs,” I said, when the time for 
general exercise came. 

**But I have found over twenty, Miss 
Deane, and I have n’t nearly finished yet. 
Each of our first class has chosen a differ¬ 
ent subject, so I suppose I must n’t give all 
mine now.” 

I think I shall be obliged to limit you 
to three,” I said ; and she thus began : — 

“ The agreement of the Bible with secu¬ 
lar history shows us that it was written by 
truthful men. In Genesis xlvi. 34, it says, 
‘ Every shepherd is an abomination to the 
Egyptians.’ And Josephus tells us that 
about 2,159 years before Christ, they had 
been conquered by a tribe of Cushite shep¬ 
herds from Arabia. They had just suc¬ 
ceeded in driving them off, after one hun¬ 
dred and forty years under their yoke, 
when Jacob and his family cam^e down 
from the very neighborhood to which the 


104 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

shepherds had fled/ Matthew xxvi. 5 is, 
‘But they said, Not on the feast-day, lest 
there be an uproar among the people/ It 
is recorded in history, that the king sta¬ 
tioned soldiers on the porticoes of the 
Temple during this same feast-day, to quell 
riots, should any arise. Some of the peo¬ 
ple stoned these soldiers, and wounded 
many of them ; upon which Archelaus sent 
out his whole army and the horsemen, and 
killed 3,000 of the Jews. Mark says in his 
sixth chapter, that ‘ Herod on his birthday 
made a supper to his lords, high captains, 
and chief estates of Galilee.’ Other ancient 
authors tell what spendid birthday parties 
Herod used to give, and how one time he 
sent for an officer who had been in prison 
a whole year, to come and celebrate with 
them.” 

“ I would like to give one of my topics 
next, please,” said Willis, “it comes in so 
good right here. Every nation so far as 
known, has a tradition of a great deluge ; 
and the Mexicans and Peruvians have kept 
pictures of it. I read this morning the ac- 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 105 

count of a great flood taken from the Chal- 
daean tablets, and I copied parts of it: ‘I 
caused to go up into the ship all my male 
and female servants, and the animals of 
the field. The raging of a storm in the 
morning arose ; it swept, it destroyed all life 
from the face of the earth. Six days and 
nights passed. On the seventh day, in its 
course was calmed the storm. The sea he 
caused to dry, and the wind and tempest 
ended. On the seventh day I sent forth a 
dove, and it left. The dove went out and 
searched ; a resting-place it did not find, 
and it returned. I sent forth a raven, and 
it did eat, and did not return. I sent the 
animals forth. I built an altar on the 
peaks of the mountain.* Now,” he con¬ 
cluded, “what better witness do we need 
than this ancient inscription, supposed by 
some to be hundreds of years older than 
Moses’s account of the flood. If it had not 
actually taken place, would the Chaldaeans 
have invented and recorded in stone this 
story > ” 

Clara had looked out verses concerning 


I06 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

the animals and birds mentioned in the Bi¬ 
ble ; she said their name was legion, and 
they corresponded perfectly with the hab¬ 
its of the animals as given in natural his¬ 
tory. 

Moses says in Deuteronomy xxxii. ii, 

‘ As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth 
over her young, spreadeth abroad her 
wings, taketh them, beareth them on her 
■ wings.’ Eagles are said to push their 
little ones out of the nest, which is usually 
built upon a ledge of rocks, in order to com¬ 
pel them to use their wings. When they 
see that the eaglets are growing tired and 
weak, they flutter beneath them, catch 
them on their wings, and return them to 
the nest — repeating the operation every 
day till they have taught them to fly alone. 

*‘Job xxxix. 14, 15, 18: ‘Which leaveth 
her eggs in the earth, and warmeth them 
vin the dust, and forgetteth that the foot 
may crush them, or that the wild beast 
may break them. What time she lifteth 
up herself on high, she scorneth the horse 
and his rider.’ The nest of the ostrich 









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FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 10/ 

is only a hole scratched in the sand, and 
sometimes there are as many as sixty 
eggs within and* around it. The outside 
ones are for the little ostriches to eat, till 
they grow strong enough to feed upon the 
hard shrubs and grains that form its usual 
nourishment. It is the swiftest of all run¬ 
ners, and even when mounted by two men 
is said to outstrip in speed an excellent 
English horse. Sometimes an Arab horse¬ 
man will chase one for eight or ten hours, 
and the only way he can take it is to dash 
down upon it, as it usually runs in circles, 
and disable it by a stick thrown with great 
dexterity. 

“ There is a great deal in the Bible about 
locusts. In Exodus it says, ‘ They covered 
the face of the whole earth so that the land 
was darkened.’ OiTe African traveler states 
that an army of these insects passed over 
his head ; and that as far as he could see, 
north, south, east, and west, the sun was 
obscured ; and they were an hour in flying 
over him. Another, an eye-witness, tells 
of driving through a company of them 


I08 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

whose wings were not yet grown, ' the car¬ 
riage wheels moving through locusts piled 
up to the height of two feet.’ They do 
not fly in the night, as the cold frosty air 
chills them, but light upon bushes, where 
they cluster till the branches are bent 
down to the very ground. There is an 
allusion to this in Nahum iii. 17 : ^ Which 
camp in the hedges in a cold day ; but 
when the sun ariseth they flee away.’ 
They destroy every green thing that comes 
in their way, ‘eating the corn and grass 
down to the roots, and stripping the trees 
of their leaves.’ The Bible says: ‘The 
land before them is as the Garden of Eden, 
and behind them a desolate wilderness.’ 
Its ravages are so great that in Southern 
Europe, China, and Turkey, rewards are 
offered for the collection of the eggs and 
perfect insects ; and in one year ;^4,ooo has 
been paid in a single city for this object. 
One emperor sent an army of 30,000 men 
against them, and as the prophet Joel says, 
‘ When they fall upon the sword they 
shall not be wounded ; ’ so the soldiers 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 


109 

formed a line several hundred miles long, 
and attacked them with shovels, putting 
them in sacks, and burning them. But 
they could not even thus wholly conquer 
them.” 

At this point I was obliged to tell Clara 
that she had reached her limit. 

Ida Williams gave as her subject the 
botany of the Bible. Mark iv. 31, 32: 

It is like a grain of mustard-seed, which 
. ... is less than all the seeds that be in 
the earth. But when it is sown it groweth 
up, and becometh greater than all herbs, 
so that the fowls may lodge under the 
shadow of it.’ ‘As small as a mustard- 
seed,’ was a common proverb among the 
Jews. The plant grows to such size in 
Palestine that travelers often speak of its 
being as high as their horses’ heads, and 
the smaller birds light upon it to eat the 
seeds.” 

“ I should n’t think they would like such . 
bitter things,” interposed Mamie, “ it don’t 
sound likely to me.” 

Ida was usually thoroughly prepared for 


1 10 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

questions. She always walked round her 
statements, Ira said, and looked at them 
from every direction to make sure that they 
stood perfectly straight. 

“I think you will,find,” was her answer, 
‘‘that the mustard-seed has no pungent 
taste till it has been crushed, or mixed with 
something else. Also, there is in Palestine 
a large tree bearing a fruit about the size 
of a currant, which has this same peculiar 
taste, and is thought by some to be the 
one alluded to by the Saviour. 

“ Job, in speaking of’the wicked, says he 
‘ shall cast off his flower as the olive.’ This 
tree has white blossoms, and the owner 
dreads the least wind, as that is apt to 
cause them to fall. The fruit is gathered 
if possible in one day, and two methods are 
referred to in Scripture, by beating the 
tree, and sometimes by shaking it. There 
are frequent allusions to olive oil, which is 
obtained by pressing the berries. Micah 
says, ‘Thou shalt tread the olives, but 
thou shalt not anoint thee with oil.’ In 
1827 the duty paid on olive oil in Great 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. HI 

Britain was over $ 160 , 000 . In the one 
hundred and third Psalm David tells us 
that ^ As for man, his days are as grass : as 
a flower of the field so he flourisheth. For 
the wind passes over it, and it is gone ; and 
the place thereof shall know it no more.’ In 
order to understand these verses we must 
remember that sometimes a hot wind would 
come up from the Arabian deserts and in 
one day scorch the grass and flowers, so 
that from greenness and beauty, they were 
in a few hours changed to dry dead stalks, 
brown and bare like the ground in winter.” 

Looking towards the primer class just 
then, I beheld them all industriously at 
work. Each had taken a corner of her 
apron, pulled apart the edges of the hem, 
and inserting a pin, head foremost, was 
passing it through the whole length of the 
hem, as if running in a gathering string 
with a tape needle. Of course the one 
with the narrowest apron came out ahead, 
and Julie Meigs was triumphantly pulling 
out the pin at the opposite corner of hers, as 
I looked round. I could not be severe with 


112 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

them, for I used to do the same thing when 
I was a child. So I said, “ Now my little 
folks must listen to Nellie, who will try to 
tell us as simply as she can, about the curi¬ 
ous customs in Bible times. We will all 
fold our arms while she is talking to us.” 
Eight little hands clasped tightly the calico 
sleeves of their pinafores, while eight shin¬ 
ing eyes centred on Nellie Scott. 

If your papa were building a house, you 
would think it funny for him to put a fence 
all round the roof, would n’t you ” 

Four small heads bowed assent, but the 
arms did not unfold. 

Well, when God told Moses what to do, 
He said in the thirty-second chapter of 
Deuteronomy, ‘ When thou buildest a 
new house, then thou shalt make a battle¬ 
ment for the roof.’ Now in olden times 
people used to have flat roofs on their 
houses, and they went up there to pray, or 
to sit and talk together. If there was n’t a 
railing, they would get too near the edge 
and fall off, perhaps. So you see God 
knew just what to tell them. And do you 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. II 3 

remember our last week’s Sunday-school 
lesson, in the twentieth chapter of Num¬ 
bers ; how Moses told the king of Edom 
that if he would let the Israelites pass 
through his land, they would pay him for 
all the water they drank. Did you know 
that in that hot country water is very 
scarce, and the wells are sometimes eighty 
miles apart. In some places they sell wa¬ 
ter, and even to this day while an Arab is 
drinking, he thanks God, not only for the 
owner of the well, but for the man who dug 
it. Then, too, you would think it strange 
if anybody should tell you it was polite to 
pull oif your shoes as a mark of respect for 
a person, would n’t you ? ” 

Three heads nodded sleepily, and Julie 
observed, “ My mamma won’t let me go 
barefoot.” 

Well, in the olden times shoes or san¬ 
dals were considered very common and in¬ 
significant. Perhaps you have read how 
Abram told the king of Sodom he would 
not take anything ‘from a thread to a shoe 
latchet.’ And it was considered the high- 
8 


J 14 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

est mark of reverence to persons or places, 
to take off one^s sandals. You know the 
angel said to Joshua, ‘ Loose thy shoe from 
off thy foot, for the place whereon thou 
standest is holy ground.' Yesterday I was 
reading an account of some travelers who 
visited the tomb of Aaron, Moses’ brother, 
on Mount Hor ; and the guides told them 
to loose their shoes from off their feet, in 
the very words of the Bible. I must not 
talk to you any longer now; but after 
school I will tell you how they used to hire 
mourning women, when any one died, to 
shriek, and wail, and pull out their own 
hair; how they used to save their tears in 
a bottle, and what the Old Testament says 
about it.” 

I don’t think we have spoken of the 
literary excellence of the Bible,” Ira went 
on. “ At one time when Benjamin Frank¬ 
lin was in France, some of the officers 
were discussing this subject, and one even¬ 
ing they asserted that the Scriptures had 
no intellectual merit, a child could have 
written them, etc. 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 115 

“ Franklin did not seem to pay much at¬ 
tention, until finally they appealed to him. 
He asked them to excuse him from giving 
his opinion, for he was thinking of a beau¬ 
tiful poem he had lately seen. They begged 
him to read it to them, and drawing a leaf 
from his pocket, he began: — 

“ ‘ God came from Teman, 

And the Holy One from Mount Paran; 

His glory covered the heavens, 

And the earth was full of his praise. 

He stood and measured the earth, 

He beheld and drove asunder the nations ; 

And the everlasting mountains were scattered. 
The perpetual hills did bow ; 

Plis ways are everlasting.’ ” 

‘‘ When he had finished the poem, they 
all exclaimed, ‘ How beautiful! ’ ‘ Where did 
you find it } ’ etc. 

“ ‘ Gentlemen,’ he replied, * this is from 
your despised Bible; and what I read you 
was the prayer of the prophet Habakkuk.’ 

“ Another time Dr. Johnson read at a 
fashionable party in London, an ^old manu¬ 
script of the book of Ruth. They were de¬ 
lighted and thought it a charming pastoral. 


116 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

The truth is we are so accustomed to its 
language that we forget to notice its sub¬ 
limity, just as people in New Hampshire 
call their wonderful mountain peaks only 
large hills.” 

Ira then gave statistics showing how 
many of our greatest poets from Milton 
down, had drawn their inspiration from the 
Bible. And how the best parts of the 
Koran, and of Confucius’ writings, were 
borrowed from the same source. I don’t 
know’but he would have kept on talking 
till sunset, if I had not stopped him, for as 
poor Willis said regretfully, there were only 
three minutes left for him to tell of the 
monuments and inscriptions, which were 
some of the most convincing of external 
evidences. 

“ First was the Moabitish stone. When 
the Arabs heard that the Franks were in¬ 
quiring after it, and had offered a large sum 
of money for it, they broke* it into pieces, 
and hid them in granaries. But the whole 
of them, as it is now supposed, are found, 
and they contain an account of the war be- 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 11/ 

tween Mesha, king of Moab, and the king 
of Israel, recorded in our Bible in the third 
chapter of the second book of Kings. Also 
in Egypt there has been found in a mummy 
pit a papyrus, supposed to have been writ¬ 
ten about three thousand years ago, near 
the time of the Exodus, telling of the relig¬ 
ious revolutions of that time, and both con¬ 
firming and explaining the Scripture nar¬ 
rative. A stone has been discovered at 
Jerusalem, near the place where the Temple 
stood, and upon it is an inscription forbid¬ 
ding Gentiles to enter, under pain of death. 
Josephus asserts that around the Temple 
were pillars bearing inscriptions that for¬ 
bade the Gentiles to enter; and in Acts 
xxi. 28, we read that Paul came near losing 
his life because the people supposed he had 
polluted the temple by taking an Ephesian 
into it. Travelers are constantly finding 
the places mentioned in the Bible, and 
every year confirms its accounts by new 
discoveries.” 

I looked round to see if the primer class 
was interested, and this is what met my 


Il8 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS, 

eye. Julie had spread upon her lap, the 
handkerchief, printed over with pictures 
and verses, wherein her soul delighted, and 
Bessie on one side, and Daisy on the other, 
overcome with weariness and heat, had laid 
their heads in her lap, and were fast asleep. 
She had crossed the little nerveless hands, 
to show that they were still obeying orders, 
and above the two brown heads hei; own 
arms were virtuously folded. It was a 
pretty picture; even Eben was touched by 
it, and lowering his voice, so that it could 
not be heard on Ida’s side of the room, he 
repeated softly, ‘‘For so He giveth his 
beloved sleep.” 


CHAPTER IX. 


THE SOUL GROWING. 

** UT of the world into Campville,” 
were the words in which Coleraine 
expressed the conviction that its eastern 
boun*dary was the Ultima Thule of civiliza¬ 
tion, and beyond lay only ignorance, pov¬ 
erty, and sin. You would not have guessed 
it from the boastful conversation of the two 
boys, who, as Dan Van announced one 
Wednesday noon, had come down from 
Camp’s to visit school. 

Anybody would think to hear them 
talk, that the Lord had made Campville, 
and thrown in the rest of the world,” he 
said to Eben in the entry. 

Come on, then,” was his reply ; seeing 
the rest of the older ones have gone straw- 
berrying, you and I will have it all to our¬ 
selves.” 

So Bill Jones, Tom Byfield, Eben, and 


120 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

Dan Van, all sought the cool shade on the 
north side of the school-house, and through 
the open window their voices floated in. 

“ I suppose,” began Eben, “ that they 
don’t teach much in your school except 
* the three R’s, Reading, Riting, and Rith- 
metic.’ ” 

“ What’s that ? ” said Bill Jones. 

“ Oh, nothing but a Latin quotation.” 

“Teach!” burst out Tom By field, “I 
should think they did. Why next term 
we ’re a-goin’ to study ferlosophy, and 
astrology, and comic sections; and our 
teacher is awful pertikler about the pro- 
nouncation of our words.” 

“ Ah ! ” sighed Eben in the tone of an 
indulgent parent, “ we have recently formed 
a class in Ad Captandum Vulgus.” 

(The second division was just studying 
the phrases in Noah Webster’s spelling- 
book.) 

“ Sho I that’s nothin’,” persisted Tom, 
“you’d orter hear our class spell. Hono- 
rificabilinitudinitatebusque she puts out, 
and we begin, h-o-ho, there’s your ho, n-o- 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 12 I 

no, there’s your no, hono, there’s your hono, 
r-i-ri, there’s your ri, honori, there’s your 
honori, and so on all through. Tell you 
what, you don’t have no such a school here 
as we do down to Camp’s.” 

“ I say you,” interrupted Bill Jones, 
are you a-goin’ to have doin’s this arter- 
noon 1 I wish, you’d give us an idee what 
you do ” 

“ I will try to show you,” he returned 
politely, and calling up the primer class, 
who Were idly fringing the doorstep, he 
thus began, — 

“Julie, what is a skiff } ” 

“It is a little boat that sails with oars,” 
was the unhesitating reply. 

“ Do they grow on ponds like water- 
lilies ? ” 

“ No, somebody makes them.” 

“ Now, Julie, there are little animals in 
the ocean that have arms or oars, with 
which they paddle across the water. No 
man can make one like them that will go 
down to the bottom of the sea, and come 
up, alone ; who do you suppose did make 
these queer little boatmen ? ” 


122 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

God.” 

Delly, if my father should give me a fur 
overcoat, cap, and mittens, what would you 
think he was trying to do } ” 

To keep you warm.” 

“ And who gives the bears their nice fur 
overcoats to keep them warm ? ” 

‘‘God.” 

“ Now, Tom Byfield, can any man make 
even a pair of fur mittens except by bor¬ 
rowing from the animals that God gave 
them to first ? ” 

“ N-o-o-o.” 

“ Well, then. He is able to do something 
that we can’t.” 

“Is that what you do, Wednesdays ? ” 
demanded Bill Jones ; “ tell you what, Tom, 
guess we ’ll stay.” 

And stay they did. I heard their loud 
coarse jesting as the strawberry pickers 
returned. I noted the rough overbearing 
way in which Tom By field talked to Burt ; 
and seeing the contrast between the two, I 
suddenly realized the change that was mani¬ 
festing itself in the little bound boy, as the 
summer days drifted past. 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 123 

We do not notice the daily, impercepti¬ 
ble growth of a plant, until we compare it 
with the stunted germ of a few weeks since, 
and are amazed at the transformation. And 
thus, silently and surely, had Burt’s soul 
been growing. He had his faults still; and 
his rude uncouth manners often peeped out; 
but I think we are sometimes best judged 
by what we are not, rather than what we 
are. And as I looked upon that wicked 
Tom Byfield, Burt’s “ Might* have been,” 
those three words were not the saddest 
of tongue or pen,” but a cry of exultation. 
I have not transcribed the frequent oaths 
which the Campville boys used as connect¬ 
ing links for their sentences. It was my 
one great joy that all profanity and low 
slang had been banished from our grounds. 
To be sure Miss Augusta was surprised, she 
said, that I allowed Eben to ‘‘ sarse ” the 
rest right before my very eyes ; but I knew 
that even he was improving, and I needed 
only to look at the etymology of “ to in¬ 
struct ” —to build within — in order to con¬ 
vince me that it was better to dig at the 


124 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

foundations, than to begin the edifice at 
the roof. If we only knew the power and 
beauty that might come into a teacher s 
life, surely we should oftener seek to build 
within our own hearts, and our pupils’, a 
place where the King might abide. 

As I said, the two boys stayed, listening 
with open mouth and eyes to the decla¬ 
mations and compositions, from Horace 
Waite’s brief description of Hens, begin¬ 
ning, “ A Hen is a beast with two legs,” up 
to Ida’s elaborate essay on the Improve¬ 
ment of Time. 

Willis and Clarence remained a moment, 
at my request, after the scholars had gone 
out to recess. 

When the bell struck, there appeared 
upon the black-board* in a cramped, almost 
illegible handwriting the name of Willis 
Hall; and in clear bold characters that of 
Clarence Wescott. 

“ Those who think the boys have each 
left their own autograph upon the board 
may rise.” No response. “Those who 
think Clarence wrote both names.” No 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 125 

one rose. “ Those who think Willis wrote 
Clarence’s name, and Clarence Willis’s,” 
In an instant they were all standing, and 
Willis nodded assent. 

“You have judged correctly, though you 
did not see them write the names. Now 
in regard to the old manuscript Bibles of 
which I am going to tell you, please re¬ 
member that you can sometimes discover 
facts, simply by the appearance of the pen¬ 
manship. 

Then I told them of the sudden burial 
of Herculaneum beneath the lava thrown 
out from a volcano, eighteen years before 
the last books of the New Testament were 
written. And how more than sixteen 
centuries later, a French nobleman sunk a 
well near there, and found to his surprise 
three statues. Further excavations re¬ 
vealed a theatre, two temples, and a villa, 
the latter containing nearly eighteen hun¬ 
dred manuscripts on papyrus. 

“ Please, Miss Deane,” said Bob, “ will 
you tell us what papyrus is.” 

“ It is a sort of bulrush, sometimes called 


126 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

paper reed, found on the banks of the Nile. 
The inner bark was divided by means of a 
sharp instrument into thin plates, which 
were placed side by side. Over them 
another layer was laid at right angles, and 
the whole moistened with water, and then 
pressed for some hours. It was next beaten 
with mallets, polished with smooth stones, 
and then dried. Paper made in this way 
was valued according to its strength and 
whiteness. Among the ancient writers it 
was more extensively used than any other 
substance ; and it is the first manufactured 
paper of which we have any record.” I 
added that in the Vatican, the largest 
library of Rome, there was carefully pre¬ 
served an ancient manuscript of the Bible, 
the letters of which bore a strong resem¬ 
blance to those used in writing the rolls 
found at Herculaneum. It required but 
one question to lead them to the conclusion 
that this fact was a proof of the great an¬ 
tiquity of the Roman manuscript. 

Clara inquired if this was supposed to be 
the oidest copy of the Bible now in exist- 








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FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 12/ 

ence. So I described to them the Convent 
of St. Catharine on Mount Sinai, and the 
curious way in which, for fear of the Be¬ 
douins, people were admitted to it. There 
was no door, bell, nor knocker; but after a 
traveler’s credentials had been raised to the 
window, and examined, a rope attached to 
a windlass was lowered, by means of which 
he was drawn up to an aperture, thirty feet 
from the ground, and thus entered the con¬ 
vent. I related the story of one of the 
visitors. Dr. Tischendorf, finding in an old 
waste basket, the contents of which were 
used in kindling fires, some parchment 
leaves of a hitherto unknown copy of the 
Greek Bible. The result of this was the 
discovery of the best, most complete, and 
most ancient manuscript of the New Testa¬ 
ment that had ever been found. Another 
thing which proves the Gospels and Epis¬ 
tles to be genuine, is the dialect in which 
they were written ; it was used chiefly 
during the first hundred years after Christ, 
and was generally dropped' before the close 
of the third century. A majority of the 


128 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

early writers are unknown to us, their books 
having been lost, but of those that remain 
over one hundred testify to the authenticity 
of the New Testament. 

As I paused here, I noticed that Tom 
Byfield had grown very restless. I guessed 
from hints let fall at noon, that some of the 
Campville atheists had dared the two boys 
to come up here and dispute our conclu¬ 
sions. Eben and Dan Van, I observed, 
looked very wise when they came in; and 
the girls had carried out certain books and 
studied through the recess. Bill Jones had 
been jogging Tom’s elbow for some time, 
and laughing in a low, sneering way. And 
no sooner had I ceased speaking than he 
roared out, “ I say the world and everything 
was made by chance, there ! ” ‘‘I will give 

you scholars an opportunity to answer that 
statement first,” I said quietly. 

“■f think,” remarked Eben, with slow 
satirical emphasis, “ that if I were playing 
backgammon, and had doublets 365 times 
in succession, I should be suspected of 
using loaded dice. Now the sun has risen 


FINDING ms FOOT-PRINTS. 


129 

and set at the time predicted, not for simply 
365 times, but with only one memorable 
exception, 2,136,575 times. It is wonderful 
that it should happen so.” 

And,” continued Dan Van, “ it is sur¬ 
prising that among 800,000,000 of people, 
they should all chance to have their eyes 
on the front instead of on the back side of 
their heads, for otherwise they would have 
to walk after the fashion of crabs.” 

I am of the same opinion as the Green¬ 
lander,” said Bob Sawyer. “They told 
him there was n’t any God, and at first men 
grew out of the ground like trees. ‘ Why 
don’t I see them growing out of the ground 
now^? ’ ” he asked. 

By this time Ida had her dictionary 
open. “Chance is defined as ‘an event' 
that takes place without being intended, 
contrived, expected, or foreseen.’ The way 
the telescope came to be invented was this. 
Galileo heard that a man in Holland had 
placed two pieces of glass in a tube, in 
such a way that if held to the eye it made 
things look larger. Accordingly he at once 
9 


130 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

began work with a lead tube, and ended with 
the invention of the telescope. This was 
the event intended. Now the eye is formed 
upon precisely the same principles as the 
glass instrument; was not then its creation 
an intended result, and if so it was not 
made by chance.” 

“And,” added Nellie Scott, “it has this 
advantage over man’s work : the telescope 
must be adjusted by screws according as 
you wish to look at an object far off, or one 
that is near. The eye adjusts itself to dis¬ 
tance without having to experiment several 
minutes.” 

“Yes,” chimed in Willis, “and what a 
fortunate coincidence it is, that entirely by 
chance fishes should have those convex 
eyes which can see in the water ; for if 
they had happened to have been shaped 
like ours, the poor things would have been 
helpless.” 

Clara was eager for a chance to speak. 
“ After Susie Van Cleve had paralysis, and 
Dr. Leonard helped her so much by bring¬ 
ing his electrical machine, and giving her 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS, 131 

shocks, everybody said, what a wonderful 
contrivance ! But the electrical eel can 
give a shock powerful enough to prostrate 
a man, or kill a horse. In this way it de¬ 
fends itself against larger animals, and de¬ 
stroys the life of those it seeks for food. It 
looks as if there was a good deal of con¬ 
trivance about Bill Jones’ chance.” 

But in the midst of her description, Tom 
Byfield and Bill Jones, without any warn¬ 
ing, darted from the room. Under the win¬ 
dows they laughed loudly, and shouted de¬ 
fiance with a coarse oath, then passed on 
toward Campville, singing all the way a 
drinking chorus. 

It was now nearly time for school to 
close. So I reminded them of the old Ger¬ 
man fairy tale, where the tuft of miracle 
grass led to a cave lined with diamonds 
and rubies ; and how the little son, weary 
of waiting, fell asleep, while the father, in¬ 
tent on securing the rich treasure, remem¬ 
bered only that his hands were filled with 
gems as he passed out, till as the cave 
closed behind him he heard a far off voice 


132 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

murmuring, “ Forget not the best thing.’* 
And of the sorrowful years that followed 
when he would gladly have given all he 
possessed to have had his child again. 

My dear scholars,” I said, in conclusion, 
“we have studied the evidences of Chris¬ 
tianity, but do not forget the best thing 
without which the rest will be but useless. 
Do not forget to give your hearts and lives 
to Him who said, ‘ Search the Scriptures, 
for in them ye think ye have eternal life, 
and they are they which testify of me. ’ ” 

Burt was silent most of the way home; 
he had a headache, he explained. When we 
reached the bars he said, “ Good-night, 
teacher,” and again on the other side he 
repeated, “ Goc^d-night, teacher ; ” then 
slowly climbed back, as I stopped to gather 
a bunch of white violets that I found by the 
roadside. I have some of them still, poor 
withered things! 

“ Teacher,” he said hesitatingly, “ should 
you mind it much to kiss me once just as 
you do Daisy and Bessie and Julie ? ” 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 133 

I bent down and touched my lips to the 
little freckled face, with its pleading eyes. 

Good-night, Burt, and God bless you 
always,” I said, and then each went our 
way. 


1 


CHAPTER X. 


THE SOUL-HARVEST. 

B URT’S place was vacant the next 
morning, and about ten o’clock a 
hasty knock called me to the school-room 
door. I found Henry Wescott there, 
trembling with excitement. 

** Oh, Miss Deane, Burt is dying, and 
they want you to come just as quick as you 
can. 

I motioned Ida to take my place at-the 
desk, and turning to the children, said, 
My dear scholars, Burt is but just alive 
and I must go to him. I know I can trust 
you every one, that you will study quietly 
till I come back,” and I hastened away. 

' Mr. Wescott’s horse was not of the 
swiftest, and the way seemed endless to my 
eager impatience. 

When I reached the house, he was toss- 



FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 135 

ing restlessly, and repeating brokenly to 
himself, “ Follow — Him — clear — home ; 
follow— Him — clear — home.” 

A few moments later he quieted, and a 
look of recognition dawned on his face. 

O teacher,” he murmured faintly, do 
you think there ’ll be room for me in 
heaven ? ” 

“In my Father’s house are many man¬ 
sions,” I replied, with quivering lips, for I 
could scarce control my voice. 

“ Tell the scholars,” he continued, “ to 
follow God’s foot-prints, and they won’t 
lose the way.” 

Then he relapsed into silence. After a 
time he turned his face to the other side 
and held out his little sunburnt hand. 

“Jesus loves you, Mr. Frisbie,” he said 
simply; and I saw two great tears roll 
down the man’s hardened face. 

His mind began to wander, but it came 
back at the last. Upon his lips settled a 
smile of such sweet content as never Ra¬ 
phael painted, or Angelo fashioned in mar¬ 
ble, and we could just catch two tremulous 


136 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

words, Follow Jesus.” His breathing 
grew fainter and fainter, not with painful 
gasps, but gently as that of a tired child ; 
and at ten minutes past eleven he was 
quite asleep. 

The town clock was striking twelve as I 
re-entered the school-room. As I expected, 
I found it quiet and orderly. I merely 
said to the scholars that Burt had gone 
Home, and by and by I would tell them 
more about him. 

That afternoon, as the bell was tolling to 
announce his death, I asked them to lay 
aside their books, and between the solemn 
sounds that knelled his departure, I re¬ 
peated to them his dying message. Then 
from some unspoken impulse, we all bowed 
our heads in prayer, and thanked God that 
when the tide went out it left not merely 
the deserted body on the sands, but the 
memory of holy words, and the sweet hope 
that we should yet meet again the little 
bound boy, whom angels were not ashamed 
to welcome. 

He was buried the next afternoon, and 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 137 

Mr. Cameron, at the special request of Mr. 
Frisbie, conducted the funeral. Perhaps it 
was because we are all ptolemaic, and con¬ 
sider our own little world the centre of the 
universe ; but certainly that simple service 
in the low, dark, unpainted room, seemed to 
me the most touching and impressive thing 
I had ever seen. And when we stood 
about the grave, and each scholar had 
dropped a pure white flower upon the plain 
pine coffin, the only words that the minis¬ 
ter uttered was the sweetly solemn story of 
the beloved physician, ‘‘Jesus said unto 
him, follow Me. And he rose, left all, and 
followed Him.” 

There was no more school that afternoon, 
but some of us came together for a little 
prayer-meeting. My words were few, for 
it was less in sound than in silence that I 
looked for his coming ; and when God is 
speaking so solemnly in his still small voice, 
it is for us reverently to listen to his teach¬ 
ing. 

The next day brought a new experience 
to me. Eben, who with all his faults, usu- 


138 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS, 

ally prided himself upon his irreproachable 
conduct during school hours, stubbornly 
refused to recite a word of his history les¬ 
son, though I knew he had learned it, and 
kept his lips closed in willful defiance. At 
any other time I should perhaps have ex¬ 
pelled him on the spot, for he was sullenly 
braving me to conquer him, but at this time 
I felt that I could not. 

“ You will not be allowed to take part in 
any other school exercise, till you have re¬ 
cited this lesson, Eben,” I said, firmly. 

No reply.. Nellie was sobbing audibly, 
and cast entreating glances toward him, 
but he would not even look that way. 

Four o’clock came, and again I asked 
him if he was ready to recite. He took no 
notice of the question. 

“ I would like to see you after school is 
excused,” I added. 

He gave no sign of hearing me, but re¬ 
mained at his desk when the others went 
out. 

After they had all gone, I said, quietly, 
“ Please come to the desk, Eben.” He 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS, 139 

hesitated, then walked up to me with a set, 
determined look, as if he had braced him¬ 
self to meet any reproof or threatening with 
which I might be'charged. Suddenly, as I 
doubted in myself what I should do next, 
the thought flashed over me, here is a soul 
for which Christ died, defying his Holy 
Spirit. I forgot the history lesson, forgot 
everything but the one fact that he was not 
a Christian, and almost before I was aware, 
I had knelt at my chair, and was pleading 
with God for his soul. In a moment I was 
dimly conscious of another kneeling beside 
me, and the sound of smothered sobs min¬ 
gling with my prayer. 

When we rose, his face was softened and 
tearful. He took up one corner of the little 
black silk apron that I wore, and stroked it 
in a caressing way. What should I say to 
him } He was perhaps balancing between 
life and death, and a word might turn the 
scale either way. We are so apt to say too 
much to others during a revival, and too 
little at other times. 

Eben,” I paused an instant, ** Jesus is 


140 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

asking you to follow Him. I leave it be¬ 
tween God and your own soul to decide the 
question. Do not sleep to-night till you 
have answered it to Him.” 

No other words were spoken but a sub¬ 
dued “ good-night.” 

On my way home I met Mr. Cameron. 
He had been to call on Mr. Frisbie, and 
was disappointed at not finding him at 
home. 

‘‘I am hoping Burt’s death will have a 
good effect on him,” he said. 

I supposed Mr. Frisbie’s heart was so 
thoroughly macadamized with infidel books 
and tracts, that it was incapable of receiv¬ 
ing any deep impression,” I answered. 

Do you remember,” he said, “ who it 
was that promised, ' I will take away the 
stony heart’ If we make straight the paths, 
I think the King of Glory will pass by.” 

His words were verified that same even¬ 
ing. At the weekly neighborhood meeting, 
to the surprise of all, Mr. Frisbie was pres¬ 
ent Farmer Blake made his usual stereo¬ 
typed prayer, confessing in general that he 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 141 

had * done many things he ought not to have 
done, and left undone many things that he 
ought to have done,’ but omitting to specify 
any of his sins in particular. And Mr. 
Wescott spoke of his love to God being so 
great that he often wished he had lived in 
the days of the martyrs, so that he could 
prove it to the world. I believe, indeed, he 
would have burned at the stake without 
flinching ; but nevertheless he couldn’t 
stand the breaking of a lamp chimney at 
home without flying into an angry passion, 
and boxing Clarence’s ears. If we could 
only take the spirit of the martyrs into the 
little daily duties of life, how much we 
should glorify the Master; but many a man 
who has the grace to appear an exemplary 
deacon and Sabbath-school teacher, has n’t 
grace enough to be anything but a tyrant 
in his family. I was always struck with 
the reason that Mrs. Rogers, a week later, 
gave me for thinking Mamie was a Chris¬ 
tian. “ She is so eager and enthusiastic,” 
I suggested, “that I fear her feelings are 
wrought upon, and she may mistake sym¬ 
pathy for conversion.” 


142 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS, 


“ T is n’t her sudden fit of Bible reading 
that gives me confidence,” was the mother’s 
reply, “ it is because she washes and wipes 
the dishes clean, instead of whisking them 
off as she used to.” 

When the meeting was about half fin¬ 
ished, Mr. Frisbie rose. 

“ My friends,” he said, I wanter say a 
word about this matter of religion. I could 
arger all day with any minister for ten mile 
round ; but when Burt said, ‘ Jesus loves 
you, Mr. Frisbie,’ somehow I could n’t get 
away from that. I went into the woods, 
and the birds just stared at me, and 
kept trying to tell me He loved me. I 
darsent stay to hum for fear my woman 
would say something about Burt. I told 
the Lord I did n’t want Him to love me, 
'twarnt his business. It did n’t make no 
difference. I went into Camp’s for a drink, 
and the sweared words made me think of 
Him. So I ’ve made up my mind to see 
fair play the rest of my life. It’s a poor 
broken shell, and I don’t expect He wilj 
valler it much, but I ’ll just love Jesus with 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 143 

all my heart. I have forgot Him so long 
I don’t deserve to go to heaven now. I 
sha’n’t say nothing about that to Him. I 
shall let Him put me just where He thinks 
best. But oh, friends, I do love Him ! and 
I want you all to pray for me, that I may 
never make Him feel bad again.” 

The words were coarse and rough, but 
through them all ran such a humble, sor¬ 
rowful, loving tone, that each soul was 
thrilled ; and when he added, “ He’s here 
now, I can see Him,” there went up from 
Mr. Cameron’s lips such a prayer as I never 
heard before. Many of my scholars were 
in tears ; and at the close of the meeting 
he said: Dear young friends, I want you 
each to take home with you one of these 
little books ‘ Come to Jesus,’ and, next to 
your Bible, read that. And if you are really 
and truly seeking the Saviour, God will set 
some Star in the East to show you the 
way.” 

Eben had not spoken in meeting, but the 
next morning as soon as devotions were 
finished, he rose without a word, handed 


144 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

me his history, and taking his place upon 
the recitation bench repeated the lesson 
without waiting for a. question. As he 
returned to his desk he said in a clear voice, 
I ask your pardon. Miss Deane, for my 
conduct yesterday ; it shall never be re¬ 
peated ; ” and I felt sure from this victory 
over himself, that the Great Question had 
been rightly decided. 

Such a week as followed ! Every noon, 
at the request of the scholars, we had a 
little meeting of our own, and all even 
down to Julie Meigs, uttered their sfmple 
little prayers. Perhaps it was not more 
than, “O God, please to help me to be 
a good girl, and not pinch my baby sister 
when she tears my books ; and make us all 
Christians, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.” But 
unpretending as they were, they might 
have been like little Dorrit’s, “ as audible 
above ! — who knows — as a whole cathe¬ 
dral choir.” 

I did not try to work upon their feelings. 
There is nothing so hardening as to plunge 
from a white heat of excitement into cold 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 145 

indifference, and repentance isn’t always 
measured by tears. 

You don’t encourage them to say they 
have got a hope, and urge them to join 
the church at the next communion, as you 
ought to,” said Miss Augusta to me one 
day. 

“ Miss Plummer,” I replied, I am wait¬ 
ing till the reaction comes, to see if they still 
continue steadfast. You know what John 
Bunyan says, * When Religion goes in his 
silver slippers, we love much to walk with 
him in the street, if the sun shines, and the 
people applaud him.’ I want my scholars 
to become church-members after thorough 
consideration, so that they may understand 
that they belong to a body of faithful work¬ 
ers, and not be tempted to feel that they 
have a title-deed to heaven signed and laid 
away, and that they need concern them¬ 
selves no further.” 

“ But they may lose all desire to join.” 

Not if they are truly converted, and are 
trying every day to get nearer to God. A 
religion whose sole aim is to win heaven, 
10 


146 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 

caring less to live holy than to die happy, 
is a selfish thing, which even if it save its 
possessor, so as by fire, will never accom¬ 
plish much for God. I want they should 
let their lives witness for God first, and 
after we see that we shall believe the testi¬ 
mony of their lips.” 

And the witness did come. To be sure 
each showed still their individual peculiar¬ 
ities. Ida was exceedingly strict and pre¬ 
cise in her own words and actions, and 
equally severe upon the faults of others. 
Eben remarked that she never said a char¬ 
itable thing, nor ever did a wrong one. 
He recalled the words a moment later ; for 
he was really trying to break himself of 
making sarcastic speeches ; but he said it 
was all the way up-hill for him to follow 
Jesus. After a few weeks Mamie seemed 
almost as rash and impulsive as ever, and 
still sighed for a blue silk dress with five 
flounces on it; and Bell Stanton’s persist¬ 
ent entreaties sounded very much like teas¬ 
ing. But there was this difference, that 
now they mourned their failures to do right, 


FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS. 147 

and tried to turn over a new leaf—as Miss 
Augusta remarked. 

What makes you love God ? ” she asked 
of Mamie in her categorical way. 

“Because I can’t help it,” was the char¬ 
acteristic response. 

“ Well!” sighed Miss Plummer, “ if you 
did n’t flirt your hair round so much, I be¬ 
lieve I should really begin to hope that you 
had experienced religion.” 

Next day the obnoxious curls were put 
up in smooth braids; and though it was 
such a little thing, it convinced me that ac¬ 
cording to the beautiful Indian legend, she 
was truly “ walking toward sunset.” 

So week by week in morning sunshine 
and evening silence, the trembling hopes 
grew strong; not faith in themselves, but 
in God’s love and help, till even on a pillow 
of stone I could have said, “ This is the 
House of God, and this is the Gate of 
Heaven.” 

“ O teacher, teacher ! ” cried Bessie Saw¬ 
yer, running in one day, with glad exultant 


148 FINDING HIS FOOT-PRINTS, 

face. “ What do you think! The God’s 
glory-seeds have blossomed under the win¬ 
dows. Is n’t it nice ! ” 

“ My dear little girl,” said Eben, gently, 
I think the God’s glory-seeds have been 
blossoming for a long time past.” 





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